






















































































Class :5 Y j<r^d 


Book 



CopightN?_ 

CDPifRIGHT DEPOSIT. 














A Study of Adult Life 


BY 

THEODORE G. SOARES 


A textbook in the Standard Course in Teacher Training, 
outlined and approved by the Sunday School Council 
of Evangelical Denominations 


Third Year Specialization Series 


Printed for 

THE TEACHER TRAINING PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION 

By 

THE PILGRIM PRESS 
Boston 





EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION 


Specialization Courses in Teacher Training 

In religious education, as in other fields of construc¬ 
tive endeavor, specialized training is today a badge of 
fitness for service. Effective leadership presupposes 
special training. For teachers and administrative 
officers in the church school a thorough preparation 
and proper personal equipment have become indis¬ 
pensable by reason of the rapid development of the 
Sunday-school curriculum which has resulted in the 
widespread introduction and use of graded courses, 
in the rapid extension of departmental organization 
and in greatly improved methods of teaching. 

Present-day standards and courses in teacher 
training give evidence of a determination on the part 
of the religious educational forces of North America 
to provide an adequate training literature, that is, 
properly graded and sufficiently thorough courses and 
textbooks to meet the growing need for specialized 
training in this field. Popular as well as professional 
interest in the matter is reflected in the constantly 
increasing number of training institutes, community 
and summer training schools, and college chairs and 


VI 


Editors’ Introduction 


departments of religious education. Hundreds of 
thousands of young people arid adults, distributed 
among all the Protestant' Evangelical churches and 
throughout every state and province, are engaged in 
serious study, in many cases including supervised 
practice teaching, with a view to preparing for service 
as leaders and teachers of religion or of increasing 
their efficiency in the work in which they are already 
engaged. 

Most of these students and student teachers are 
pursuing some portion of the Standard Course of 
Teacher Training prepared in outline by the Inter¬ 
national Sunday School Council for all the Protes¬ 
tant churches in the United States and Canada. 
This course calls for a minimum of one hundred 
and twenty lesson periods including in fair educa¬ 
tional proportion the following subjects: 

(a) A survey of Bible material, with special ref¬ 
erence to the teaching values of the Bible as 
meeting the needs of the pupil in successive 
periods of his development. 

(b) A study of the pupil in the varied stages of his 
growing life. 

(c) The work and methods of the teacher. 

(d) The Sunday school and its organization and 
management. 

The course is intended to cover three years with a 
minimum of forty lesson periods for each year. 


Editors’ Introduction vii 

Following two years of more general study, provi¬ 
sion for specialization is made in the third year, with 
separate studies for Administrative Officers, and for 
teachers of each of the following age groups: Be¬ 
ginners (under 6); Primary (6-8); Junior (9-11); 
Intermediate (12-14); Senior (15-17); Young People 
(18-24), and Adults (over 24). A general course on 
Adolescence covering more briefly the whole period 
(13-24) is also provided. Thus the Third Year 
Specialization, of which this textbook is one unit, 
provides for nine separate courses of forty lesson 
periods each. 

Which of these nine courses is to be pursued by any 
student or group of students will be determined by 
the particular place each expects to fill as teacher, 
supervisor, or administrative officer in the church 
school. Teachers of Juniors will study the four 
units devoted to the Jlinior Department. Teachers 
of young people’s classes will choose between the 
general course on Adolescence or the course on Later 
Adolescence. Superintendents and general officers 
in the school will study the four Administrative units. 
Many will pursue several courses in successive years, 
thus adding to their specialized equipment each year. 
On page iii will be found a list of the Specialization 
Courses available at the time of publication of this 
volume. 

A program of intensive training as complete as 
that outlined by the Sunday School Council neces¬ 
sarily involves the preparation and publication of an 



Editors’ Introduction 


• • • 

Vlll 

equally complete series of textbooks covering no less 
than thirty-six separate units. Comparatively few 
of the denominations represented in the Sunday 
School Council are able independently to undertake 
so large a program of textbook production. It was 
natural, therefore, that the denominations which to¬ 
gether had determined the general outlines of the 
Standard course should likewise cooperate in the 
production of the required textbooks. Such coopera¬ 
tion, moreover, was necessary in order to command 
the best available talent for.this important task, and 
in order to insure the success of the total enterprise. 
Thus it came about that the denominations repre¬ 
sented in the Sunday School Council,, with a few ex¬ 
ceptions, united in the syndicate production of the 
entire series of Specialization units for the Third 
Year. 

A little more than two years have been required for 
the selection of writers, for the careful advance co¬ 
ordination of their several tasks and for the actual 
production of the first textbooks. A substantial 
number of these are now available. They will be 
followed in rapid succession by others until the entire 
series for each of the nine courses is completed. 

The preparation of these textbooks has proceeded 
under the supervision of an editorial committee rep¬ 
resenting all the cooperating denominations. The 
publishing arrangements have been made by a similar 
committee of denominational publishers likewise 
representing all the cooperating churches. Together 


Editors’ Introduction 


IX 


the Editors, Educational Secretaries, and Publishers 
have organized themselves into a voluntary associa¬ 
tion for the carrying out of this particular task, under 
the name Teacher Training Publishing Association. 
The actual publication of the separate textbook units 
is done by the various denominational Publishing 
Houses in accordance with assignments made by the 
Publishers’ Committee of the Association. The en¬ 
terprise as a whole represents one of the largest and 
most significant ventures which has thus far been 
undertaken in the field of interdenominational co¬ 
operation in religious education. The textbooks 
included in this series, while intended primarily for 
teacher-training classes in local churches and Sunday 
schools, are admirably suited for use in interdenomi¬ 
national and community classes and training 
schools. 

This particular volume entitled A Study of. Adult 
Life is one of four specialization units for the Adult 
Department. It presents in concise form an analysis 
of the religious consciousness of the adult and aims 
to give to religious teachers the necessary background 
for understanding the controlling motives and guiding 
influences upon which the moral and religious life of 
adults is based. 

The remaining units in the same adult series deal 
with (1) The Principles of Christian Service; (2) 
The Religious Education of Adults; (3) The Organi¬ 
zation and Administration of the Adult Department. 
These four textbooks provide a comprehensive and 


X 


Editors’ Introduction 


valuable training course for all who are engaged in 
the adult work of the church school. 

For the Teacher Training Publishing Association, 

Henry H. Meyer, 

Chairman Editorial Committee. 

Sidney A. Weston, 

Editor, Congregational Publish¬ 
ing Society. 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


There is no attempt in this volume to present tech¬ 
nical psychology. It is not even intended as a simple 
introduction to the subject. Readers who desire 
such a study in the most popular form may find it in 
a delightful little book The Human Nature Club by 
the eminent psychologist, Edward Thorndike (Long¬ 
mans) or in the very practical treatise Psychology and 
the Day's Work by Edgar James Swift (Scribners). 
The reader who is willing to undertake a real intro¬ 
duction to the subject should read such a book as 
Psychology, A Study of Mental Life, by Robert S. 
Woodworth (Henry Holt & Co.). We have here un¬ 
dertaken the very specific task of considering adult 
human nature as it is found in church life. We have 
before us the practical problem of developing adults 
in the work of the Kingdom of God. We must then 
know something about their general characteristics, 
their ways of thinking, feeling, acting, their abilities 
to learn and to grow in the'religious sphere and the 
manner in which some of the major experiences of 
life affect them. 

There is not very much literature on adult educa¬ 
tional psychology. References for further reading 
will be found at the end of each chapter. The starred 




Preface 


Xll 

books should be consulted only by those who have 
already some elementary knowledge of psychology. 
The other books will be found quite readable by any 
who are following this discussion. 

Theodore Gerald Soares. • 

The University of Chicago, 

Eastertide, 1923. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Editors’ Introduction . v 

Author’s Preface .xi 

Contents . xiii 

I. General Characteristics of Adult 

Life. 1 

II. The Adult Mind.10 

III. Change in Mental Habits .... 20 

IV. The Divisions of Adult Life ... 30 

V. The Mental and Moral Differences 

OF THE Sexes .41 

VL The Adult as a Learner .... 52 

VIL The Adult as a Worshiper ... 61 

VIIL Christian Living.76 

IX. The Parental Experience .... 88 

X. The Adult in Youth Leadership . . 102 


t t 










'‘i.l 


CHAPTER I 


GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ADULT 

LIFE 

Physical Maturity.— The most marked difference 
between maturity and youth is the relative unchange¬ 
ableness to which we come when we are “ grown-up.” 
This difference is more far-reaching than at first it 
might appear. Physiologically, growth is a very dis¬ 
turbing experience. To have one’s organization de¬ 
veloping so rapidly that one is unable to adjust 
oneself to new coordinations is to be painfully uncer¬ 
tain of one’s powers and limitations. Thus the 
growing period is characterized by alternations of 
embarrassment * and self-assertion, of awkwardness 
and vigor. There results the emotional instability 
which is so characteristic of youth. 

The adult has advanced beyond all this physio¬ 
logical uncertainty and has easily forgotten what it 
meant. His normal functions are established. He 
is fairly conscious of the extent and limitation of his 
physical powers. He measurably understands his 
own organization. The element of surprise in his 
physical life is reduced to a minimum. His experience 


2 


A Study of Adult Life 


is therefore more equable, and events are accepted as 
a matter of course. 

Physical maturity does not free the adult from ab¬ 
normal physical experiences. These are common 
enough from accident and disease, resulting in greater . 
or less mental instability. The difference to be noted 
between the adult and the youth is that the former is 
normally master of his physiological organism while 
the latter is in a continuous state of readjustment to 
the complex changes that take place. 

Mental Maturity. — Another important achieve¬ 
ment of adulthood is mental maturity. The youth is 
inevitably a learner. He may not be an earnest pupil 
at school but within the sphere of his interests he is an 
avid learner. The adult on the contrary feels himself 
intellectually experienced. Even the most teachable 
adult, conscious of the endless possibility of intellec¬ 
tual development, has a certain sense of having 
arrived at the meaning of things which is utterly 
different from the adventurous course of the youth 
who is continually finding out so unexpectedly what 
the world is all about. 

However poor may be the education of boys and , 
girls from the standpoint of their most desirable de- . 
velopment, certain it is that the earlier years of life ' 
are those in which we find out most of the things that * 
we ever know. We get our body of ideas in all the J 
elemental relations of life even in childhood and we ^ 
cover most of the wider mental range in youth. Men 
and women after the middle twenties only learn more. 


General^Characteristics of Adult Life 3 

They rarely have that surprising discovery of new 
fields of experience which is the common and most 
characteristic mental quality of youthful life. 

These statements are less true of those keen minds 
which, determined on the discovery of new truth, 
retain their alertness almost to the end of life. But 
any project of adult education must take into account 
that the mind has already acquired its set and trend 
and is not as easily surprised into activity as in the 
earlier days. 

Habit.— The adult is established in habit. Per¬ 
sonal habits are probably set before twenty and 
professional habits are well along by twenty-five. 
Habit is the great economist and the great master of 
life. It enables us to act quickly, easily, in a vast 
range of circumstances. Professor Dewey distin¬ 
guishes between unintelligent habit, which makes it 
very difficult for us to progress beyond what we have 
acquired, and intelligent habit, which is simply our 
constant practice of adapting ourselves to new situa¬ 
tions. 

All discussions of the education of childhood and 
youth lay the greatest emphasis upon habit training. 
It is possible to hand over to habitual action a great 
range of the most desirable responses of conduct and 
of feeling. Without careful training, on the other 
hand, there will be formed habitual ways of acting in 
the highest degree unsocial and detrimental. 

All this takes place before maturity. It would be 
an interesting exercise to take a single day in our own 


4 


A Study of Adult Life 


lives, to follow it through in imagination in all its 
manifold expressions of thought, feeling, conduct, 
and then to estimate how much of our total responses 
to the stimuli of that single day was predetermined 
by habit. That joke at the little disaster, that bit 
of selfishness at the table, that kindly greeting to a 
neighbor, that refusal to take advantage of a certain 
business opportunity, and that acceptance of another 
opportunity, that covert depreciation of the object of 
our jealousy, that generous contribution to the famine 
fund, that glow of happiness at our friend’s good 
fortune — all are the result of repeated ways of acting. 
We run along the lines of our lives as trains run along 
rails. Any system of adult education must take ac¬ 
count of the extraordinary tenacity of habit. 

Vocational Experience. — Among the very greatest 
influences of life is vocation. At the very threshold 
of maturity one is already established in those ab¬ 
sorbing activities which determine to a great degree 
the set of his life conduct. 

When we ask what a person is, we expect an answer 
in terms of vocation. He is a merchant, a lawyer, a‘ 
carpenter; she is a housekeeper, a teacher, a business 
woman. There is a range of habits, not only those 
that belong to the business itself but reaching out 
into all life, which grow out of vocation. Thus there 
is a merchant human experience which is quite differ¬ 
ent from a carpenter experience. There is a house¬ 
keeper experience which is different from the teacher 
experience. Doubtless strong and versatile natures 


General Characteristics of Adult Life 5 

surmount this vocational habitude, but we are all 
subject to it. 

There is both strength and weakness in this special¬ 
ization of experience. It is the means by which one 
becomes most effective in the world. The phrase 
‘‘ Jack of all trades and master of none indicates 
the ineffective person who has not acquired some 
definite and limited ability. One of the most whole¬ 
some of modern religious emphases is the recognition 
that all honest effort is social service, that all efficiency 
in the work of the world may be ministry in the king¬ 
dom of God. If one cannot find the service of God 
and of man in his vocation he is sadly limited in 
religious experience. • 

Yet there can be too engrossing a vocational ex¬ 
perience. Some men know nothing but business and 
can scarcely even retain a keen interest in their own 
families. Some women are so absorbed in the myriad 
tasks of housekeeping that they can think of nothing 
else. One of the evils of our high pressure industrial 
system is that it drains the last ounce of men’s 
strength and leaves them incapable of other inter¬ 
ests. 

Religious activities have the educational value of 
enlarging the range of interest, sympathy, and knowl¬ 
edge. Where a church has a generous social and 
missionary outlook, the men and women of its mem¬ 
bership have the possibility Df almost unlimited 
development beyond the narrow sphere where ordi¬ 
nary life is cast. 


6 


A Study of Adult Life 


Prejudice.— It is important to remember that 
there are habits of feeling as well as of doing. We 
have customary ways of responding emotionally to 
the situations that arise. The responses that are 
deepest are not the result of considered judgment, 
they are the attitudes that we have taken from the 
family group, the community, the nation. The adult 
is furnished with a body of social prejudices or pre¬ 
suppositions. These terms are not necessarily de¬ 
rogatory. It is highly advantageous that in the 
course of social development many matters have been 
so definitely settled that we may enter into an inheri¬ 
tance of conduct without being obliged to think out 
everything for ourselves. We do not have to study 
the history of the institution of marriage in order to 
be monogamists. It is not necessary to acquire 
subtle powers of character analysis in order to despise 
the cheat, the coward, the bully, to admire the hero, 
and to applaud a chivalrous act. Happily, we belong 
to a race that has learned these ways of feeling. 
From our own immediate social group we acquire our 
table manners, our practices of courtesy, our sense of 
the fitness of things. So deeply may we feel on these 
matters that we are offended or even disgusted by 
contrary practices. 

Most of the matters upon which we feel most 
deeply lie below merely rational consideration. We 
have not argued ourselves • into patriotism. Our 
prejudice for our own country may have been ra¬ 
tionalized by the study of the national history, but 


General Characteristics of Adult Life 7 

it is an emotion whose springs are in those deep under 
waters whence come the great impulses of life. 

Moral and Religious Attitudes. — Our moral and 
religious attitudes partake very largely of this pre- 
suppositional quality. Except in the case of those 
who have undergone some far-reaching change in 
moral or religious experience, the home, the early 
church, the school life have so furnished us with a 
sense of what ought to be done or what ought not to 
be done that we respond emotionally to the various 
situations which arise before we are able to think out 
the problems. 

How strong is the emotional hold of the early loy¬ 
alties upon our lives is immediately evident if we 
consider the effect of a change of those loyalties. 
How difficult it is for the immigrant to achieve a new 
patriotism 'which shall have the same emotional 
quality as that of his youth! How difficult to pass 
from one Christian denomination to another and to 
carry over the quality of feeling that belonged to the 
old! Where there is strong reason for the change, as 
when one passes from a land of persecution into free¬ 
dom or from a body whose teachings have become 
repugnant to another body where one is satisfied, 
there may be developed a new loyalty that is deeply 
emotional as well as intellectual. But one could not 
change his nation or his religion very often without 
losing the feeling of loyalty altogether. 

There is undoubtedly a great value in being preju¬ 
diced in favor of truth, honesty, chastity, fairness. 


8 


A Study of Adult Life 


prayer, worship, and what may be called religious 
living. But of course there are many prejudices 
socially undesirable. Such are race prejudice, church 
loyalty to the point of bigotry, indiscriminate party 
loyalty, patriotism to the extent of scorn or hatred 
for other peoples. 

It is significant that the word “ prejudice ” should 
have a sinister quality. Later education has for one 
of its principal tasks the duty of helping us to re¬ 
examine our acquired ideas and presuppositions. 
Adult religious education must continue this process. 
We should be able to give a reason for the feeling 
that is in us. 


SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Endeavor to recall your own youth ex¬ 
periences and carefully notice sevefal young 
people in order to see if you can determine 
whether physical maturity seems to lessen 
emotional instability. 

2. Compare a child of about nine, a youth of 
about nineteen, and an adult over forty, with 
reference to their eagerness to find out about 
things. 

3. Make a list of all the elements in your i 
behavior (including acts, thoughts, feelings) 

for one hour. Consider how many of these 
represent your habits of life. How many of 
them were entirely new? 

4. Estimate how much of your time, thought. 


General Characteristics of Adult Life 


and interest are spent in your business or 
vocation. 

5. Make a list of your prejudices, that is, 
the attitudes which you take up as a result of 
being a member of the family, the church, the 
community, in which you were brought up. 

6. What was the source of your denomina¬ 
tional connection? Whence were the views 
derived which you hold on (a) the liquor ques¬ 
tion (b) Sunday observance (c) divorce? What 
inherited views have you changed as a result 
of further knowledge or of investigation? 

8. How far do you consciously endeavor to 
reexamine your predispositions? 

REFERENCES FOR READING 
(The starred books are of a more technical character) 

Edward Thorndike, The Human Nature Club 
(Longmans). This little book will be valu¬ 
able for the entire discussion. 

*John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct 
(Henry Holt and Co.), pp. 13-42; 58-74. 
Richard C. Cabot, What Men Live By (Hough¬ 
ton Mifflin Co.), pp. 65-85. 

Henry F. Cope, The Efficient Layman (Ameri¬ 
can Baptist Publication Society), pp. 1-10. 


CHAPTER II 


THE ADULT MIND 

Change in Adult Life.^ — Inasmuch as adult life is so 
much less subject to change and modification than 
are childhood and youth, it is of the highest impor-' 
tance that education shall be most effectively carried 
on in our earlier years. But that is not to say that 
education must cease with youth. We are never 
entirely beyond change until very advanced years. 

The full possibilities of adult education have never 
been measured. Too often the inevitable differences 
between older and younger life have seemed to settle 
the question against adult progress. Men and women 
easily declare with bitterness that they are too old to 
learn. Schools and churches have hastily assumed 
that their educational responsibilities were solely with 
the young. This is far from true, and the study of 
adult life indicates that not only may a vigorous 
mental, moral, and religious development continue on 
the basis of early education, but to a large extent the 
lack of early opportunities may be made up. 

Nor is adult life without certain striking and novel 
experiences which may have large educational oppor¬ 
tunities. In the following chapter we shall consider 
how very fundamental readjustments of thought and 


The Adult Mind 


11 


conduct may be made, including the experience of 
conversion, which has most significant educational 
implications; and in a later chapter the vitally im¬ 
portant experience of parenthood, which has great 
possibilities for the development of social-mindedness. 

Mental Powers. — While the physical organism is 
mature at about twenty-five, our mental powers con¬ 
tinue to grow and, under favorable circumstances, 
to develop rapidly for many years thereafter. This 
is not always apparent for the reason that many 
people fail to give any systematic exercise to their 
mental abilities after leaving school. We can have 
unused brain cells just as we have unused muscles. 
If we never think beyond the immediate concerns of 
home and business we shall not develop any power of 
accurate, vigorous, and broad thinking. 

Hence the great need of adult education. Mr. 
H. M. Leipziger has a significant chapter on School 
Extension and Adult Education'^ in which he discusses 
the system of lectures for adults given under the 
Board of Education of New York City. He indicates 
the large opportunity for continuing the educational 
system into mature life. As a suggestion of the 
possibility of intellectual development even into old 
age, he quotes Longfellow’s interesting plea: 

But why, you ask me, should this tale be told 
To men grown old,' or who are growing old? 

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late 
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. 

1 In Social Aspects of Education by Irving King, pp. 98-106. 


12 


A Study of Adult Life 


Cato learned Greek at eighty, Sophocles 
Wrote his grand CEdipus, and Simonides 
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, 

When each had numbered more than fourscore years. 
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten 
Had begun his ‘‘ Characters of Men.” 

Chaucer, at Woodstock, with the nightingales. 

At sixty wrote the “ Canterbury Tales,” 

Goethe, at Weimar, toiling to the last 
Completed “ Faust ” when eighty years were past. 
These are indeed exceptions, but they show 
How far the gulf stream of our youth may flow 
Into the arctic regions of our lives 
Where little else than life survives. 

This last might have been extended to modern 
times. Martineau did his most significant writing 
after he was eighty. Edison and Burroughs are well 
known examples of extraordinary fecundity in old 
age. It may be admitted that these old men were 
exceptional. But if few of us may expect such re¬ 
markable development, all of us may extend into 
mature years the ability to enter into new interests, 
to make some progress into new fields of knowledge, 
to acquire new sympathies and, in general, to con¬ 
tinue to be learners of the truth. 

Without attempting a complete survey of the 
mental powers of the adult, it may be well to discuss 
some of the more important ones and to indicate how 
they may function in the enlargement of life. 

Memory. — Contrary to the common notion that 
memory is vigorous only in childhood, it is clear that 
men and women develop the ability to recall a wide 


The Adult Mind 


13 


range of facts within the spheres of their interest. 
Psychology has long recognized that there is no 
general “ faculty ” of memory which can be developed 
as such. Memory functions only with regard to the 
particular matters in which it is exercised. The sales¬ 
man will remember the names, addresses, telephone 
numbers, and special characteristics of his customers. 
Our tailor, to our astonishment, and sometimes to 
our alarm, will take half a dozen measurements before 
writing them down. The public speaker develops the 
ability to recall the points of an intricate discourse 
requiring an hour in delivery. The housekeeper 
carries in mind the details of her complex enterprise, 
including the memory of the location of hundreds of 
different articles. The politician knows the linea¬ 
ments of every possible voter in his constituency. 
This vigorous development of memory is especially 
manifest in connection with our business because 
that is of peculiar interest to us. But the adult is 
also storing in his mind a wealth of other matters to 
which he gives attention. How well he knows his 
favorite authors! How extended the ability of the 
raconteur to accumulate stories! How easily the 
details of delicious gossip are retained in _mind! Is 
one interested in art, he can recall all his favorite 
pictures; in music, he can summon in imagination the 
masterpieces that he loves; in travel, he can remem¬ 
ber the places that he has visited; in politics, he can 
repeat the arguments for his accepted doctrines. 

Education will be concerned with leading the adult 


14 


A Study of Adult Life 


into new fields of interest so that he may accumulate 
in memory the facts and knowledge which give to life 
breadth, enjoyment and powder. The possibilities of 
gathering into memory biblical, missionary, and other 
religious knowledge are almost unlimited. 

Judgment.— High-school and college courses are 
calculated to exercise the youth in reasoning upon 
ascertained facts, in the weighing of arguments, in 
the analysis of evidence, in the formation of judg¬ 
ments. There is great loss where inadequate school¬ 
ing has curtailed such exercise. To a greater or less 
degree the experiences of life themselves enable all 
people to attain some power in this direction. 

Beyond the years of youth, these discriminating 
powers may greatly develop through exercise and 
experience, often not reaching their fullest vigor until 
well into middle age. From twenty-five to forty the 
development is in full swing, but, as in the case of 
memory, there is no general development of a “ fac¬ 
ulty ” of judgment. One acquires discriminating 
ability only in the spheres in which it is exercised and 
where it can be checked. Thus we all develop powers 
of judgment in our own calling. The mechanic 
knows wfiat is wrong with the machine and how it 
can be remedied. The experienced housewife detects 
at once the excellences and infelicities of an elaborate 
meal. The reporter seizes immediately upon the 
salient features of a story. The lawyer goes to the 
heart of a complicated case. The farmer estimates 
accurately the resources of his land and stock. 


The Adult Mind 


15 


But a lawyer may be the most hopeless failure 
when he undertakes amateur farming. A mechanic 
may not be able to detect the flaws in a specious 
argument. The widow with a life insurance may 
invest her money in a fraudulent scheme. We de¬ 
velop our powers of judgment only in those fields in 
which we exercise judgment with the constant oppor¬ 
tunity of checking and testing. ’The education of the 
adult involves the creation of situations in which he 
shall constantly be called upon to practice discrimina¬ 
tion in spheres other than those in which his occupa¬ 
tion requires him to move. The activities of the 
church and of the community, the study of religious 
and social problems, the discussion of theories of 
conduct, procedure, organization, policy, and the 
testing of these theories wherever possible by practice, 
are of the highest importance in the broadening of 
this superlative mental power of judgment. 

-Esthetic Appreciation. — One of the highest mental 
powers is that of measuring worth and then so allow- ’ 
ing the sense of worth to affect us that we feel the 
joy of it if it is good or the pain of it if it is bad. This 
power of appreciation belongs peculiarly to the culti¬ 
vated mind and is therefore very dependent upon 
early education. It is susceptible however of marked 
development in the adult period. Like all the finer 
powers of the soul, its fullest expression comes only in 
mature years. 

The appreciation of beauty is one of the most 
glorious experiences of our lives. Yet sheer mental 


16 


A Study of Adult Life 


laziness often prevents our attaining it. It is much 
easier to get excitement out of jazz music than to 
follow the finer harmonies of the symphony. Vaude¬ 
ville is more easily entertaining than noble drama. 
The colored supplement may satisfy us instead of 
art. The beauty of the countryside may be common¬ 
place. Poetry may be a bore. 

But if one can get a start toward the appreciation 
of finer beauty he will eagerly pursue it. The wonder¬ 
ful years of young adulthood may become rich with 
the beauty which lies in literature, in music, in sculp¬ 
ture, in painting, in architecture, and in all nature. 
And this noble enjoyment may continue to the end of 
life. 

Religion and art have belonged together since the 
beginning of time. It is strange that we have divorced 
them. Half the church members never find the ex¬ 
quisite literary beauty of the Bible. In our attempts 
to develop ecclesiastical plants we sometimes lose the 
ministry of architecture. With cheap gospel songs 
on the one hand and elaborate anthems on the other 
we lose the opportunity of cultivating the apprecia¬ 
tion of religious music. Religious education has a 
large responsibility here to the adult as well as to the 
youth. 

In a praiseworthy attempt to be virile, contempo¬ 
raneous, practical, the church often makes use of 
cheap and vulgar sensationalism. It is a natural 
reaction from the uninteresting, commonplace minis¬ 
tries of the ordinary church. We have felt that 


The Adult Mind 


17 


people must be shaken out of lethargy, stirred to 
action, so we have introduced the methods of theatri- 
calism into our church and Sunday school. We shall 
pay a heavy price in depraved religious taste. 

There is grandeur in great preaching. There is a 
beauty in noble religious song. There is profound 
emotion in worthy prayer. We do not need to be 
either dull or catchy. We can help people to an 
appreciation of the beauty of holiness. 

Social Appreciation. — The appreciation of human 
qualities is even more important than the sense of 
aesthetic value. It has the profoundest moral sig¬ 
nificance. This appreciation is necessarily confined to 
those qualities which we understand; hence it is 
dependent upon cultivation. Every one admires the 
courage of David against the giant, but not every one 
can see that Jesus was courageous. National preju¬ 
dice often obscures the virtues of an alien race. To 
rude natures love has often seemed weakness. 

Appreciation of other people and of other ways and 
of other virtues can be cultivated. It is the outcome 
of social experience. It should begin in childhood 
but we are never too old for its development. The 
adults who have gone as missionaries to foreign 
peoples and foreign lands, the residents in settlements, 
the teachers of the immigrant peoples, have generally 
developed great appreciation of those with whom they 
have lived. Our class system, our different types of 
residential districts tend to keep us away from one 
another and to prevent this healthy process. The 





CHAPTER III 


CHANGE IN MENTAL HABITS 

There are two kinds of people who might have a 
life experience free from any marked mental crisis. 
One is the savage who grows so naturally into the 
possession of the ideas, beliefs and attitudes of his 
tribe that he is not often or very much troubled by 
doubt. The other would be that Christian so care¬ 
fully nurtured that he would be able to grow naturally 
into larger and wider views, the old always taken up 
into the new without disturbance or serious trouble. 
It is doubtful whether such a condition is possible in 
our complex life. But there is the very character¬ 
istic testimony of Edward Everett Hale as to the 
simplicity and naturalness of his religious develop¬ 
ment. 

Conflict of Ideas.— The relative simplicity of the 
development of the savage arises from the fact that 
the body of ideas of the tribe is equally shared by all, 
that the prejudices and social attitudes are generally 
the same. It is true that the savage peoples whom 
we know are already far from such simplicity. In 
contrast the modern child and youth grows up in a 
complex of groups. He belongs to the family where 
indeed there may be more than one way of looking at 
things. Again, at school each teacher has a different 


Change in Mental Habits 


21 


set of opinions. The group of companions has its 
own ideas about many important matters. The pas¬ 
tor and the Sunday-school teacher again have various 
views. College is very upsetting with its demand for 
fact and reason. Newspapers, magazines, books 
bring different ways of regarding not only the inci¬ 
dental but sometimes the central interests of life. 

In politics, one generally begins by adopting his 
father’s views involving certain opinions on matters 
of history, a certain range of economic argument, 
and a very definite estimate of certain outstanding 
personalities. Later study reveals that the father 
was WTong on some of his historical points, that his 
economic views are perhaps entirely unscientific, 
that some of his heroes were very ordinary men and 
some of his pet abominations most estimable patriots. 
Such an experience shakes one’s loyalty, arouses 
doubt, and may be exceedingly disturbing. 

Again, one may have been brought up with certain 
very strict ideas regarding amusements. The per¬ 
missible enjoyments in the home were very few. 
The solemn term “ worldly ” was applied to all the 
common delights. The youthful Christian, anxious . 
to do right, has earnestly followed the home training. 
But he leaves the simple family life for the city. He 
meets excellent people whom he admires and finds 
them freely indulging^in the forbidden joys. He 
comes to the disturbing conviction that his own folk 
were strait-laced and bigoted. It is again a most 
disturbing experience. 


22 


A Study of Adult Life 


Naturally it is in religion that these differences are 
most serious, for here the element of belief is most 
prominent. It is inevitable that one s earlier beliefs 
shall be challenged. Whatever views we learned at 
home, there are scores of other views that will be 
presented to us. How inevitably disturbing to be 
obliged to reconsider one’s most sacred faith! 

The Process of Readjustment.— Where there is a 
conflict of ideas it is inevitable that there shall be 
readjustment. One may of course hold tenaciously 
to the opinions of home and early training and suc¬ 
cessfully resist all assaults of the enemy. The Roman 
Catholic system is particularly effective in guarding' 
its youth against the loss of faith. Protestantism, 
where it is able to lay much the same emphasis on the 
idea of authority, is often equally successful. Even 
so, the process of adjustment is not entirely absent. 
One cannot even in the most careless way face a view 
contrary to one’s own and remain quite the same as 
he was. 

A very large class of persons refuse to undergo the 
mental strain of a serious attempt at readjustment. 
Finding their old opinions, political, social, religious, 
challenged in some able and compelling fashion, they 
take the easy course of indifference. If there are so 
many views no one is likely to be correct. They con¬ 
clude that it is quite impossible to decide between 
conflicting authorities and there is therefore no great 
need to be concerned about the matter at all. • 

To many people the process is far more disturbing. 


Change in Mental Habits 


23 


The old faith was so good, how can it be abandoned? 
But here is new evidence which seems to be conflict¬ 
ing, how can it be denied? Sometimes through years 
of uncertainty the struggle is carried on. Sometimes 
the values of the old faith are all conserved and yet 
there is a completely new appreciation of the relation 
of those values to the facts of life. This is readjust¬ 
ment in its completest form. A classic example is 
the Apostle Paul passionately preserving the religion 
of the Old Testament and yet completely freed from 
the legalism of the Pharisees. 

But sometimes there is a process of readjustment 
which practically brings one back to his childhood 
faith with very little change of view and yet with a 
certain feeling that the faith does not depend on 
opinions and can stand whether the opinions come 
or go. 

The Period of Readjustment.— Normally, this 
process of readjustment should be complete by the 
end of adolescence. It ought not to be a very promi¬ 
nent adult experience. It is the duty of the college 
and of the church to help its young men and women 
to find their way, not to an unchangeable set of 
opinions to be held through life, but to a happy union 
between early faith and later knowledge which shall 
enable them to go on successfully in the attainment 
of truth. 

Many young men and women leave college and 
perhaps more who do not attend college go through 
later adolescence in the churches without this healthy 





24 


A Study of Adult Life 


mental readjustment. The experience is therefore 
very common in early adult life.^ Religious “ doubt 
is often discussed as if it were a very unhealthy and 
undesirable attitude. Of course it may be morbid 
and capricious. But the reexamination of our in¬ 
herited beliefs in the light of our larger knowledge is 
one of the most healthy and desirable exercises that 
we ever engage in. It was the great task of Socrates 
to “ sting ” people out of their complacent acceptance 
of what had been given them and to compel them to 
think for themselves and to know what they know. 
The religious education of the adult must have more 
of this stinging quality. We have already referred to 
Dewey’s discussion of the attainment of a hahit of 
continual readjustment of thought and action.^ It is 
the habit of keeping up-to-date. 

Irreligious Persons.— By the end of adolescence 
the religious habit with all its mighty hold upon life 
should be definitely formed. All too frequently the 
religion of childhood has been lost in youth by the 
failure of parents and of teachers to help the boys and 
girls into the larger meaning of adolescent religion. 
Thus there develops one large class of irreligious 
persons. 

Another class of the irreligious may be produced by 
the process of questioning which we have just been 
discussing. Through the periods of questioning and 
mental struggle the great safeguards are the con- 

1 There is a very significant discussion of this process of mental readjust¬ 
ment in Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, Chaps. XXII, and XXV to XXIX. 

2 John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, pp. 77, 78. 


Change in Mental Habits 25 

tinuous practice of religion, including devotional exer¬ 
cises and social service and a steady effort for ethical 
conduct. The absence of these almost inevitably 
results in the loss of religious experience. 

In addition to these two classes there are those who 
have never formed the religious habit at all. Prob¬ 
ably there are no persons who have never had religious 
moods, longings, even beliefs. But there are a great 
many whose childhood was without religious training 
and who in adult life give little thought or care to 
religion except possibly in moments of great calamity. 

The Conversion Experience.— Irreligious persons 
need to be converted. The New Testament word for 
repentance means literally “ a change of mind.” 
Conversion is the creation of a new center of interest 
of such engaging importance that it causes the read¬ 
justment of all other interests. The simplest case 
(and that is why the evangelist uses it so much in 
illustration) is the reclamation of the drunkard. He 
that was dead in trespasses and sins is made alive. 
Suddenly the mad desire for liquor is gone. The sot 
is saved. What has happened? Reverently, we say 
that it is a miracle of grace. It is God who is able to 
save unto the uttermost. 

But the grace of God is not arbitrary.* A new and 
powerful image is before the mind of the converted 
drunkard. He sees the loathsomeness of his former 
ways. But he might do that and yet return to them. 
He sees the Saviour and believes. The glory of 
victory is the new center of his mental life. A sudden 


26 


A Study of Adult Life 


and violent readjustment of his whole mental experi¬ 
ence has taken place. The old companions are 
objects of horror or more likely of pity. He goes 
about to tell them of his own salvation and this en¬ 
hances its meaning to him. 

Every one knows how unstable is the salvation of 
the drunkard — how easily he relapses. Every 
skilled missioner knows how to deal with him. He 
must be removed from the old surroundings. He 
must be constantly helped to keep the new central 
thought of salvation. He must sing about it. He 
must read the wonderful stories of the Scriptures. 
He must pray. Thus the readjustment of life ex¬ 
perience becomes more and more stable until at last 
a completely new set of habits has been formed. 

Naturally it is not so easy to convince irreligious 
persons who are not outbreaking sinners. The mental 
readjustment is not so evidently necessary but the 
psychology of the process is essentially the same. 
The person who has lived without the glory of re¬ 
ligious experience sees the happiness of Christians, 
realizes how good it would be to have these Christian 
hopes, is encouraged to believe that God will reveal 
himself to the soul that seeks him. This new ex¬ 
perience becomes central in consciousness and there 
is a readjustment of the mental life about the great 
object of faith. 

The technique of conversion should have its place 
in the scheme of adult religious education. One of 
the great needs of the church today is the evangelist 


Change in Mental Habits 


27 


who will abandon the easily acquired processes of 
mob psychology and learn the more intricate psy¬ 
chology of mental readjustment. 

The Wider Range of Conversion.— The possibility 
of the adult to undergo radical readjustment goes far 
beyond what is generally caflled conversion. It is 
very important to realize that psychologically the 
process is the same. Whenever a strikingly new and 
compelling thought or image becomes central in con¬ 
sciousness it tends to cause a readjustment of ideas, 
interests, attitudes. Where this is very strong, a 
genuine conversion takes place. 

One comes under the influence of socialistic teach¬ 
ings. He thinks he sees the possibility of a recon¬ 
structed human society with all the ills that afflict us 
removed. How radical is the reorganization of all 
his thinking! Everything is judged from this new 
point of view. If he is a church member’he often 
leaves the church that he may meet with others like- 
minded with himself and enjoy the community of his 
new faith. 

The development of Christian Science has this con¬ 
version quality. The idea that there can be an abso¬ 
lute good in human thought which can abolish disease, 
pain, and all evil is one of those reorganizing ideas that 
becomes central in consciousness, subordinating all 
.others to itself. 

The possibility of such radical mental readjustment 
is to be taken account of in our program of adult 
education. Thus the layman’s missionary movement 


28 


A Study of Adult Life 


brought thousands of persons into an utterly new 
relation to the ordinary missionary enterprise. The 
reading of a single book on the social interpretation 
of religion has brought many a person to a wholly 
new view of the possibility of saving not only souls 
but the whole of human life. The writer has on file 
scores of records of persons of middle age who as a 
result of years of careful study have come to entirely 
new points of view on great religious and social ques¬ 
tions. A missionary forty years of age going back to 
his work with a new realization of its meaning used 
the expression, “ I have been born again.” Many 
a Nicodemus in our churches as well as many a 
Zacchseus outside needs a regeneration. The psychol¬ 
ogy of the process ought to be carefully understood. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. What marked changes in opinion have 
you undergone since you were twenty-five 
years of age? How did they come about? 

Do you regret any of them? 

2. Have you known any person who has lost 
his youthful religious faith? Could you tell 
how it came about? Can you think of any way 
in which he might have changed his opinions 
and kept his faith? 

3. Have you attained since reaching adult 
life any rich religious thought that has re¬ 
organized your thinking? Try to trace the 
process. 


Change in Mental Habits 


29 


4. Why do adult Christians go into (a) 
Christian Science, (b) Spiritualism, (c) New 
Thought? 

5. Do you know any one who was converted 
in adult life? Try to determine what was the 
psychological process. Do not make a dis¬ 
tinction between the mental processes and the 
grace of God. Our faith causes us to believe 
that God is the agent in such experience, but 
that does not prevent us from seeing what 
actually takes place in the mental processes of 
the convert. 

6. Does it seem desirable to you that you 
might gain new views or do you resist the 
thought of change? 

7. How far does education involve change? 

REFERENCES FOR READING 

*John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct 
(Henry Holt and Co.), pp. 106-124. 

William James, Talks to Teachers on Psy¬ 
chology (Henry Holt and Co.), pp. 64-78. 
Edgar James Swift, Psychology and the Day's 
Work (Scribner’s), pp. 23-30, 98-122. • 
*James B. Pratt, The Religious Conscious¬ 
ness (Macmillan), Chaps, vii and viii, 
pp. 122-164. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE DIVISIONS OF ADULT LIFE 

While we have been discussing the adult as if his 
life were of one character, it is important to recognize 
that there are fairly well-defined divisions with their 
distinctive characteristics. These are not so clear 
nor so vitally significant as in early life. The change 
which takes place in the five years from eleven to 
sixteen and again that which takes place from sixteen 
to twenty-one is never repeated in any other five-year 
period until actual senile decay. But that is not to 
say that adulthood is without its differentiations. 

Four Periods.— Four periods may be distinguished 
with a fair degree of distinctness. It must be re¬ 
membered, however, that there is much individual 
variation and that divisions of life are at best only 
approximate. 

Youth ends at about twenty-five. Physical growth 
is complete. Physiologically the organism is mature. 
The disturbing changes which accompany growth are 
over. Adult life has commenced. 

The first period, which may be called that of Early 
Manhood and Womanhood, extends to about forty. 
Middle Age may be reckoned from about forty to 
sixty. It is usual to run this period on to sixty-five, 
taking that as the beginning of advanced age. Such 


The Divisions of Adult Life 


31 


a three-fold division of adult life is doubtless correct 
for people of a low degree of intelligence. With the 
cessation of activity old age comes on rapidly. But, 
as intelligence develops, the years of efficiency of both 
men and women increase and there may well be a 
significant decade after sixty in which, notwithstand¬ 
ing some limitation of output, there may be a valuable 
contribution to the world’s life and work. It is con¬ 
venient therefore to limit Middle Age to sixty and to 
consider the next ten years separately as a period of 
Older Manhood and Womanhood-. Advanced Age 
should not begin before seventy and there may still 
be some very fruitful years in the eighth decade. 

Early Manhood and Womanhood.— The flower of 
human life is from twenty-five to forty. Physiologi¬ 
cally the organism is at its best during these years. 
The glorious vigor of later youth continues with but 
little abatement beyond the third decade. The 
building-up process is superior to the breaking-down 
process until after forty. Normally, marriage will 
have already occurred in later youth or it will come 
early in this period. The tendency to postpone 
marriage for economic reasons until after thirty is 
greatly to be deplored. The sobering effect of the 
responsibility of home and children is of great spiritual 
value. Moreover parenthood is healthiest, and the 
most promising children are born during early ma¬ 
turity. 

This is the time of securing one’s place in the world. 
Competition is keen. Ambition is intense. Business 


32 


A Study of Adult Life 


or profession levies heavily upon one’s powers. There 
is a tendency to become absorbed in the struggle. 
Men often make business success their single aim, 
giving little time to home, church, sociai duties, or 
even to recreation. This may be true also of the 
woman in business, while the wife and mother may 
become so burdened with the heavy responsibilities of 
home and children that she finds little time for any 
other interests. 

Somewhat different is the case of those who have 
merely a job.” The dullness of monotonous toil, 
the comparatively small opportunity for the exercise 
of ambition, and the physical exhaustion of the work 
of factory or store often result in a sense of the 
hardness of life from which the only escape is in 
exciting amusement or dissipation: 

This is a period of vigorous intellectual growth. 
While the zenith of physical strength is before thirty, 
the brain is only beginning to assert its best powers. 
This is perfectly evident in the case of those who de¬ 
vote themselves to intellectual pursuits. The scholar 
is young at forty. He has only shown what he is 
capable of doing. His work is often still compara¬ 
tively immature. The same is largely true of all 
professional men. 

The intellectual development of those whose powers 
are absorbed in business and industry is less marked 
outside of their own vocational concerns, largely for 
want of exercise. Only three per cent of our people 
go to high school. Even too many of this small num- 


The Divisions of Adult Life 33 

her give up serious mental exercise and confine their 
reading to newspapers and magazines and their dis¬ 
cussions to personal and local matters. The need of 
the young adult is intellectual stimulus, the awaken¬ 
ing of appetite. The great record of schools of 
correspondence study; the success of popular lectures 
on science, history, sociology, literature; the wide 
reading of economic treatises by working men — all 
these indicate the possibilities of mental growth. 
The church with its varied ministries has here a great 
opportunity. 

Middle Age.— The period from forty to sixty is the 
most productive in human life. Mental powers are 
at their best. Experience has enabled one to develop 
the economies of activity. Vocationally, one has 
taken his place and is filling it with the highest effi¬ 
ciency. The most important positions, the greatest 
responsibilities, are held by men and women of middle 
age. While the mechanic and those in various 
clerical positions reach their maximum before forty, 
they often continue to be at their best well into the 
fifth decade. 

Physical vigor is not so abundant as iri the preceding 
period but, unless organic disease has developed, the 
body continues strong and responsive and with a high 
degree of endurance. Somewhere in the middle of 
this period occurs the significant change in sex life, 
more definitely marked in women but characteristic 
also of men. It is one of the most critical periods in 
human life. Some scientists have referred to it as 


34 


A Study of Adult Life 


the “ second storm and stress period.” Coming at 
the time when business and household responsibilities 
are at about the maximum and when modern life 
makes its heaviest demand upon both men and 
women, there is sometimes a serious resultant nervous 
breakdown. In extreme cases, pronounced melan¬ 
cholia or excessive irritability are manifest. It is 
thus the period when suicide most frequently occurs. 
If one passes safely through this physical readjustment 
there is likely to be renewed health and vigor together 
with normality of mental experience. 

There are some peculiar moral dangers at about 
fifty years of ‘age to which any system of religious 
education must give particular attention. There may 
be some connection with the sex life, inasmuch as the 
moral lapses are frequently of a sex character. Men 
and women who have lived exemplary lives sometimes 
become guilty in secret of forbidden practices and 
sometimes even openly defy convention and declare 
themselves emancipated. Divorce, while most fre¬ 
quent after about a year of married life, exhibits the 
second major frequency after about twenty-five 
years. 

These conditions are partly due to the self-con¬ 
fidence which is 'engendered by half a century of 
experience. Youth knows its liability to error and is 
on its guard. Perhaps the long years of conventional 
living have caused the middle-aged to think of them¬ 
selves as superior to the prescriptions of the social 
group. 


The Divisions of Adult Life 


35 


Another phase of, this same tendency is a kind of 
moral weariness. Life with its conventional demands 
may become somewhat monotonous. The psychology 
of the roue tired out with dissipation, is easy to 
understand. But it is also possible to become tired 
of moderation. In the case of those who have lost 
their early enthusiasms, whose vocational life is 
uneventful, whose domestic experience is uninterest¬ 
ing, the very commonplaceness of everything may 
produce a monotony from which the only escape is in 
some daring attempt to find excitement. 

The unparalleled value of religion to meet these con¬ 
ditions must be evident. Real religion comes to tired 
middle-aged folk with a continual renewal of social 
enthusiasm, with an ever new demand for sacrificial 
service, with a vigorous reinterpretation of life as sig¬ 
nificant and glorious, with an infinitely interesting 
revelation of the Unseen Presence, with a range of 
appeals profoundly emotional and compelling. 

A characteristic of middle age somewhat different 
from the foregoing is disappointment. It is custom¬ 
ary to encourage young people to believe that there 
is always room at the top. As a matter of fact, there 
is room for only one at the top, and he generally 
stays there a long while. The higher places of life 
belong to the few. Most people have to be content 
in the lower ranks. Healthy-minded men and women 
usually accept these inevitable facts and carry on the 
ordinary business of the world with a moderate satis¬ 
faction. Christian service with its noble emphasis on 


36 


A Study of Adult Life 


devotion rather than on achievement brings a glory 
to the common life. 

But some people become bitterly disappointed by 
the failure to get on as they had expected. Men feel 
that others no better than themselves are in more 
fortunate positions. Women feel that marriage has 
only entailed upon them domestic hardship, and look 
at their more fortunate friends with envy. These 
people need other interests and activities, happy social 
relations, important tasks, spiritual hopes. The 
church has a most gracious ministry to the disillu¬ 
sioned man and woman of middle age. 

Older Manhood and Womanhood. — It is often 
said that modern life ages people by its rapid pace. 
Yet it is probable that the period of vigor and achieve¬ 
ment is actually being lengthened. The scientific care 
of eyes and of teeth, the better knowledge of hygienic 
living, the development of public health, are saving 
us from much of the breakdown of life. The gradual 
improvement of conditions of industry and of houvsing 
are operating in the same direction. The develop¬ 
ment of old-age pensions, by which the anxiety of 
pauperism is removed, is an important mental condi¬ 
tion of continued health. Enlarged intellectual 
interests may postpone old age for at least a decade. 

It has always been true that the very highest posi¬ 
tions in public affairs have been held by men over 
sixty years of age. The presidents of republics, the 
most noted jurists, the ablest scientists, the leaders in 
education, and even great generals and admirals are 


The Divisions of Adult Life 


37 


usually older men. While this is partly on account 
of the system of seniority, it is not entirely so, as wit¬ 
ness the great lawyers, physicians, and men of affairs, 
whose success depends upon their continued ability 
to do under competition with younger men the work 
that is to be done. 

Women in human history have grown old early. 
Modern life, by opening a greater range of interests 
and activities to woraen, is completely changing this 
condition. There is no physiological or psychological 
reason why a woman of sixty should be any older 
than a man of the same age. Indeed, if a woman 
has had a healthy motherhood, and has gone through 
the middle life with mental poise, and without organic 
derangement, she should be able to have a most 
vigorous seventh decade. The women’s clubs and 
conventions, where the more intelligent women 
gather, are characterized by a white-haired and clear¬ 
eyed alertness that are full of promise for the length¬ 
ening of the period of woman’s usefulness. 

While in the church as well as in other affairs older 
people should not selfishly hold all the places of trust 
against the oncoming younger, yet religious activities 
should have their significant part in the highly de¬ 
sirable provision for lengthening the years of effective 
life. 

A valuable exercise would be to think on the one 
hand of the influence and effectiveness in religious 
organizations of all the men and women over sixty 
and on the other hand of the joy and interest in life 


38 


A Study of Adult Life 


which religious activities are giving to the men ahd 
women of these older years. It is evident that the 
church needs the older men and women and that they 
need the church. 

Old Age. — Put it off as we may, old age comes at 
last. Under favorable circumstances, mental and 
physical, it may easily be postponed to seventy-five. 
The increasing practice of retirement from positions 
of responsibility at sixty-five or, at the latest, seventy, 
is undoubtedly wise. But there are numberless in¬ 
stances of great usefulness in the eighth decade. It 
is very important that the later activities should be 
as far as possible unofficial. Nothing is sadder than 
'the refusal of an aged person to make room for more 
effective younger work. Everyone delights in seeing 
achieving old people; everyone is exasperated at the 
older person who is blocking progress. Fixed age of 
retirement is therefore highly important. But large 
opportunities for activity after retirement are equally 
important. 

Religion is most fittingly the comfort of the aged. 
Their friends have so largely gone before them, other 
interests are so inevitably declining, it is very beauti¬ 
ful for them to have a rich experience of the presence 
of God. 


SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Select ten persons between twenty-five 
and forty, (a) Estimate their physical vigor, 
(b) How much are they absorbed in their work? 


The Divisions of Adult Life 


39 


(c) How keen are their mental processes? (d) 
How far are they taking serious mental exer¬ 
cise? 

2. Select ten persons between forty and sixty. 

(a) Estimate their physical vigor, (b) How 
many do more significant work than in earlier 
years? (c) Do any of them manifest any 
morbid characteristics? (d) Are any of them 
disappointed? (e) Have any of them found a 
sustaining zest of life through religious ex¬ 
periences? 

3. Select ten persons between sixty and 
seventy, (a) Estimate their physical vigor. 

(b) How many of them are keeping up their 
work as strongly as in earlier years? (c) Are 
the older women as vigorous as the older men? 

(d) How many of them , have important posi¬ 
tions in the church? 

4. Select ten persons over seventy, (a) 
Estimate their physical vigor, (b) Estimate 
their mental vigor, (c) How many of them 
are doing significant work? (d) Are any of 
them blocking the way by refusing to retire? 

(e) How much does their religious experience 
mean to them? 


40 


A Study of Adult Life 


REFERENCES FOR READING 

Samuel B. Haslett, Pedagogical Bible School 
(Revell), pp. 87-99. 

Chamberlain, The Child (Scribners), pp. 51- 
105. 

Anna Garlin Spencer, Woman's Share in Social 
Culture (Mitchell Kennerley), pp. 226-236. 

*G. Stanley Hall, Senescence (Appleton), pp. 

1 - 31 . 



CHAPTER V 


THE MENTAL AND MORAL DIFFERENCES 

OF THE SEXES 

Popular Distinctions. — An important problem in 
the psychology of religion is the extent of the differ¬ 
ences in religious experience which are due entirely to 
sex. Many popular writers on the subject have been 
very emphatic in their statements. It is quite com¬ 
mon to declare that men act upon reason, women 
upon intuition; that men are, deliberative, women 
are impulsive; that men are aggressive and only 
satisfied with a practical religion of accomplishment, 
while women are more passive, satisfied with a re¬ 
ligion of the inner life. Moreover, the practical 
expression of woman’s religion is thought to be in the 
direction of kindness and philanthropy, while man is 
more concerned with the correction of evil and with 
social justice. It is even sometimes said that women 
are definitely more religious and even more moral 
than men. 

It is of course a simple matter of statistical fact 
that there are more women than men in the churches. 
It is also true that the religion of the church has been 
generally more emotional than intellectual, concerned 
rather with personal salvation than with social 
justice, interested more in worship and philanthropy 


42 


A Study of Adult Life 


than in the readjustment of the affairs of the world. 
Yet it does not follow by any means that the one 
fact is the cause of the other. 

It has often been suggested that the churches are 
too feminine and that if they wish to reach men they 
must supplement their activities by a more aggres¬ 
sive and masculine program. It is this point of view 
which has brought about the large number of men’s 
religious organizations, usually made more or less 
parallel to the women’s organizations which have 
displayed so long and flourishing an activity. It is a 
curious fact that most of the men’s organizations de¬ 
veloped in the last twenty years are either dead or 
dying. 

The question must be raised whether the discussion 
of the difference of the sexes as outlined above is not 
entirely superficial and whether a much more careful 
study of the facts is not necessary. There are at least 
four elements that ought to be taken into considera¬ 
tion. 

(1) The physiological differences with their inevi¬ 
table psychological consequences. These are of course 
fixed and unchangeable. 

(2) The differences growing out of vocational differ¬ 
entiation. These are relatively certain and constant. 

(3) The long history of se;x separation with the 
natural psychological results which it has produced. 

(4) The modern tendencies against sex separation 
requiring the most careful estimate of their funda¬ 
mental social significance. 


Differences of Sexes 


43 


Physiological Differences. — The physiological dif¬ 
ferences relate to mating and reproduction. The 
male woos and the female is wooed. The male is the 
father, with no necessarily very intimate relation to 
his offspring; the female is the mother, inevitably re¬ 
lated to the offspring before birth and through the 
period of infancy. These basal physiological facts 
have certain psychological results. In the mating 
experience the male is bold, aggressive, quarrelsome 
with rivals, masterful toward the female; she in turn 
is shy, retiring yet attracting, jealous of her rivals, 
exacting yet submissive toward the male. The 
parental instinct is more marked in the mother and 
involves a tender care of the young and an inhibition 
of self-regarding conduct in order to provide for the 
sustenance and safety of the young. This gentle and 
fostering attitude is also found in the father and ex¬ 
hibits a significant development as the family becomes 
a more definite social unit. In this later development, 
as we note more particularly in the following discus¬ 
sion, there occurs the differentiation of functions, the 
mother dwelling at home with the children, the father 
undertaking their defense and thereby accentuating 
his fighting qualities. The wild rage of the mother 
when her offspring are attacked is however never lost 
and any psychology of the family must take into 
account the classic example of ferocity, “ the lioness 
robbed of her whelps.” 

It is to be noted that the mating and reproduction 
experiences, significant as they are, are by no means 


44 


A Study of Adult Life 


the whole of life and it cannot be assumed that the 
psychological characteristics of these experiences will 
necessarily extend to other spheres. The tenderness 
of the primitive mother does not continue even to her 
own offspring beyond the period when they are her 
peculiar care. Nor does she manifest tenderness 
toward other persons or creatures. In the animal 
order the female is just as aggressive as the male 
in the hunt for food. When the Hebrew sage drew 
his picture of the ideal woman (Proverbs 31) he 
represented her as a very vigorous organizer, while 
we know the modern business woman, where the 
mating problem does not enter in, as aggressive and 
practical.. 

Vocational Differences. — There was early de¬ 
veloped an inevitable differentiation of the sexes in 
the matter of vocation. When the family group 
became relatively stable the woman stayed by the 
primitive home with the children while the male went 
abroad to find food. The woman thus became the 
agriculturist, for she could till the soil about the home 
while the man could range afar to hunt and fish. 
The male was also freer to fight. Thus the woman 
remained with the children and the man went forth 
to meet the enemy. 

The patriarchal organization of society gave the 
direction of affairs to the men. These were all public 
functions, the keeping of order, the interpretation of 
laws, the passing of sentence, the execution of crimi¬ 
nals. The psychology of the stay-at-home is different 


Differences of Sexes 


45 


from that of the adventurer. Thus the woman was 
less bold, daring, inventive, and of course in general 
less intelligent, for intelligence comes with breadth of 
experience. The psychology of the inferior is differ¬ 
ent from that of the superior. Thus the woman who 
could exchange the over-lordship of her father only 
for that of her husband was submissive, deceptive, 
given to gaining her ends by indirection. The man 
was commanding, plain spoken, seeking results by 
force. 

This vocational differentiation has continued for 
many thousands of years. Has it permanently 
produced a difference of sex psychology? Has the 
woman inevitably the psychology of the stay-at-home 
and of the inferior even though she may disguise it 
by the imitation of other qualities? Those questions 
cannot be answered without a very careful examina¬ 
tion of all the facts. 

Social Differences. — There is still another element 
in this distinction to be considered. From the most 
primitive times men and women have been separated. 
Anthropologists think that the fundamental sex 
differences gave rise to the strangeness that always 
produces fear in the primitive mind. Hence the 
great range of sex taboos. The one sex was dangerous 
to the other, hidden influences operating to produce 
sinister results. This was especially the case in con¬ 
nection with all the sex phenomena.^ 

Thus in spite of the extraordinary attraction of the 

1 See Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins, pp. 512ff, 


46 


A Study of Adult Life 


sexes for one another in the mating experience, they 
lived their lives apart. The men might not enter the 
women’s quarters and vice versa. They might not 
wear each other’s clothes. It was a disgrace for one 
to do the work of the other. 

The religion of the sexes was different. Each had 
its own divinities and special sacrifices, its own festi¬ 
vals, even its own secret ceremonies. In primitive 
life there were often secret societies of the men which 
were paralleled by similar societies of the women. 

Many of these taboos and distinctions continue to 
our day. It is only recently that women have dared 
to enter certain occupations reserved for men. It is 
still often thought almost derogatory for the husband 
to wash dishes or make beds. In some churches 
women sit on one side and men on the other. In 
some churches women are not permitted to remove 
their hats while men are compelled to remove theirs. 
The “ cleansing ” of women after childbirth is still 
practiced as a religious ceremony by some. At the 
wedding, the bride is attended by maids and the 
groom by men. Secret societies are still organized 
almost entirely upon the sex basis. 

The question recurs. How far has the age-long sepa¬ 
ration of the sexes produced a sex psychology? Must 
there be then a moral and religious experience of the 
woman which is different from that of the man? 4 

Modern Tendencies. — Our age has very properly 
been called that of the emancipation of woman. 
After all the stupid jokes have been made upon the 


Differences of Sexes 


47 


subject, it remains that for the first tirrie in human 
history woman has been given the opportunity to be 
what she can be and to do what she can do. The 
question of her sphere and her ability is not to be 
settled in advance.. It is not a matter of theory or of 
divine revelation. It is to be determined by experi¬ 
ment. 

Coeducation has seemed to indicate that there are 
no fundamental differences of intellectual ability or 
interest that separate the sexes. The variation be¬ 
tween members of the same sex is far greater than any 
variation between the two sexes. No one has suc¬ 
ceeded in developing any education that is peculiarly 
feminine. The whole trend is in the direction of 
widely differentiated educational opportunities to 
meet the different needs of different persons. The 
sex difference is practically negligible. 

Vocationally, men still hold a large number of 
trades and professions to themselves. But women 
are extending their interests. They are already in 
business, in medicine, in law, in science, in the pulpit, 
in politics, as they have long been in farming, in 
literature, in art, in education. Where women are 
active in these various interests it is difficult to find 
any marked sex differences. 

It has sometimes been supposed that there is a 
great moral difference between the sexes. We have 
cherished the idea that women were more moral than 
men. We are being somewhat disillusioned by the 
rather serious moral laxity which so many women 


48 


A Study of Adult Life 


permit themselves today. As a matter of fact, women 
never were more moral than men; they were only 
more protected. In older days they were locked up 
and in recent times they were so hedged about with 
convention that dereliction was most difficult. More¬ 
over the social penalties for immorality have always 
been far heavier for women than for men. When 
these conditions are removed there seems to be little 
difference between the sexes. The girl problem is 
quite as serious as the boy problem among our less 
protected classes. Most happily also there is develop¬ 
ing a nobler manhood as well as a nobler woman¬ 
hood. 

Nor in other spheres are women more moral than 
men. They are not more honest, more truthful, 
more chivalrous, more generous, more patient, more 
kindly. In the same circumstances the variation 
between individuals is far greater than the variation 
between the sexes. 

Masculine and Feminine Religion. — There are two 
aspects of religion — the sense of dependence and the 
sense of mission. “I am not alone, because the 
Father is with me ‘‘ The Son of man came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister so spake one 
who was more than masculine, for he was human. 
Every deeply religious nature wants to take hold 
upon a greater strength. Every strong nature wants 
a religion of action. Men have written most of the 
psalms and hymns of sentiment which have been 
superficially called feminine. Women have engaged 


Differences of Sexes 


49 


quite as actively as men in the crusades for social 
justice. 

The larger number of women in the churches is to 
be accounted for partly by the wider interests of men. 
The church often has been the woman’s only social 
outlet. Moreover the activities of missionary so¬ 
cieties and of the various philanthropies gave oppor¬ 
tunities of participation for women while there was 
little for men to do except to listen. It is to be noted 
as a most serious fact that where women become 
more engaged in clubs, in politics, in reform, they are 
quite as likely to leave the church as are men. More¬ 
over where churches have an intelligent message, a 
vigorous activity, an opportunity of general partici¬ 
pation, able men are found in quite as large numbers 
as able women. 

The problem of adult religious education is not 
very much a sex problem. If we can develop a pro¬ 
gram of wider knowledge, of larger activity and a 
church life where the feeling of great religious value 
runs deep we shall provide for men and women alike 
and shall find again that “ there can be no male and 
female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.” 


SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Compare the characteristics of the lodge 
with those of the church. Which is the more 
(a) sentimental (b) ritualistic? Does this have 
any bearing on our problem? 


50 


A Study of Adult Life 


2. Ask three school teachers what has been 
their experience of the intellectual differences 
of boys and girls. 

3. Ask three well trained women whether 
they prefer a religion of sentiment or of action. 
Note the way in which they answer such a 
question. 

4. Study the topics of the woman’s club of 
your community over a period of several years. 
Consider whether such topics would have been 
interesting to men. How far have they to do 
with social progress, with political reform, 
with industrial conditions? 

5. What has been the effect of equal suffrage 
upon the interests of women in practical affairs? 

6. Select five very intelligent women and 
five very intelligent men. Ask each of them 
to make a list of ten favorite hymns. Compare 
the lists to see whether there is any marked 
difference between the sexes. 

7. Ask these same people .to make a list of 
ten topics upon which they like to hear sermons. 
Compare the lists to see whether there are any 
marked differences. 

8. Ask five well educated men and five well 
educated women who are not church atten¬ 
dants why they do not go. Compare the 
answers. 

9. Consider whether Jesus represents what 
has been conventionally called the feminine 



Differences of Sexes 


51 


type of religion or the masculine type, or 
neither, or both. 

10. What religious tasks, practices, duties, 
interests, must be limited to men and what 
must be limited to women? 

REFERENCES FOR READING 

Helen B. Thompson, The Mental Traits of Sex 
(University of Chicago Press), pp. 93-135, 
169-182. 

Anna Garlin Spencer, Woman's Share in Social 
Culture (Mitchell Kennerley), pp. 140-174. 
C. T. W. Patrick, “ The Psychology of 
Woman,” Popular Science Monthly Vol. 
XLII (1895), pp. 209ff. 

Amy Tanner, “ The Community of Ideas of 
Men and Women,” Psychological Review, 
Vol. Ill (1896), pp. 548ff. 


I r 


CHAPTER VI 


THE ADULT AS A LEARNER 

The Need of Adult Learning. — The average school¬ 
ing for an American citizen of today is twelve hundred 
days, which is equivalent to the completion of the 
sixth grade. Church members are probably some¬ 
what above the-average, but the number whose school 
education is beyond the grammer grades is undoubt¬ 
edly a minority. 

It would be unfair to limit education to the school 
discipline. American life is itself a great educator, 
and the average church member is certainly very 
much more intelligent than the eighth grade youth. 
But he has a very decided need to be a diligent learner. 
Any institution or organization that will help him to 
learn more widely than his limited opportunities have 
permitted will greatly contribute to his citizenship 
and to his social value. 

An enlightening survey might well be made in 
any community to discover the reading habits of 
the people. How many homes have anything but 
the newspaper? How many have a magazine of the 
story type? How many take a magazine with some 
definite educational quality? How many people read 
books other than novels, and what kind of novels do 
they read? We should probably find the average of 
serious reading to be very low. That is where the 


The Adult as a Learner 


53 


limited schooling tells. Our people have not enough 
foundation knowledge to encourage them to read 
significant magazines and books. 

There are of course in the church a large number of 
well educated people who keep abreast of the times 
in many fields of thought. There are also those 
ambitious and intelligent persons who overcome 
early handicaps and in spite of meager schooling often 
become well read and even learned. But this is hard 
work and the tendencies of modern life are against it. 
People are tired after their day’s labor and very 
naturally find it easier to seek amusement than 
instruction. 

We cannot build our political or our industrial or 
our spiritual democracy with an uninformed and 
unintelligent people. Today the most serious prob¬ 
lems in church and state are committed to the deci¬ 
sion of the whole body of men and women. Our very 
civilization depends upon their ability to think 
clearly and to choose wisely. 

Of course this is the strongest reason for the ex¬ 
tension of the school years of our children. We must 
become at least a high-school educated people. But 
we cannot wait for the next generation. The present 
generation of adults needs a wider learning and there 
is every reason that they should have it. 

The Capacity of the Adult. — As pointed out in a 
previous chapter the adult has the mental ability for 
continued learning, but this ability is only manifest 
within the range of his interests, that is, where the 


54 


A Study of Adult Life 


ability is exercised. The educational opportunity lies 
in the extension of his range of interests. If we can 
open up new fields into which he will desire to go, we 
shall find that he will develop the necessary mental 
powers for the experiment. The danger is that we 
may not begin where his interest is actually operating. 

Many sermons are said to be over the heads ” of 
the audience. It would perhaps be more correct to 
say that they are aside from the interests of the 
audience. Many courses of adult Bible, missionary, 
or. social study have been rejected as “ too theo¬ 
logical ” or “ too abstract ” when the real difficulty 
was that no point of contact was made with the 
customary thoughts and feelings of the adult learner. 

On the other hand, there is much preaching and 
teaching which attracts adults in large numbers but 
is pitifully lacking in educational value. It is so 
brought down to the level of popular interests, it so 
easily plays upon superficial feeling, it is so “ practi¬ 
cal ” in the sense that its application to life is im¬ 
mediately evident, that it stirs no thought, it arouses 
no curiosity, it opens up no problem, it supplies no 
information, it fails to widen the horizon of the 
hearer or to urge him on to any investigation. There 
is always danger that the big popular adult classes 
may be of this type. 

There are hundreds of adult classes under successful 
leadership where people from all walks of life and of 
all degrees of scholastic training are allured into a 
serious discussion of biblical, social, rnissionary and 


The Adult as a Learner 55 

even theological problems. The treatment is popular 
and yet scientific. Simple books are suggested to the 
class for reading. People who have not read seriously 
for years find themselves delighted with the mental 
exercise. More difficult books are soon demanded. 
The adult has become a learner. The glorious pas¬ 
sion for knowledge has been reawakened. “ Excess 
of appetite doth grow by what it feeds on.” 

Education in the Secret Orders. — The possibilities 
in this field have recently been tested in a most inter¬ 
esting way by some of the secret orders. Certain 
scholars, who are at the same time good lecturers, 
have been employed to visit the lodges for the purpose 
of giving definite instruction in American history as 
a social, political and cultural development. The 
authorities have believed that men would welcome 
an opportunity to obtain a much more fundamental 
knowledge of American institutions than is com¬ 
monly possessed. The response has been remark¬ 
able. Business men greatly occupied with commercial 
affairs have become eager students, reading widely, 
discussing intelligently, joyful in the new possibilities 
thus opened in their lives. 

It is greatly to be hoped that such experiments will 
be extended. The lodge takes so large an amount of 
time and effort of both men and women that it has a 
responsibility side by side with the church in the • 
matter of adult education. There is always danger 
that its efforts may be frittered away in mere cere¬ 
monialism and petty activities. 


56 


A Study of Adult Life 


There are interesting reports that in certain sections 
of the country the American Legion is undertaking 
the training of its members in the important field of 
civics. Wherever there are great enthusiasms it is 
exceedingly desirable that there be intelligence and 
deliberation. This experiment of our ex-service men 
might become of enormous value in the insistence 
upon an intelligent citizenship. 

The Church in Adult Education. — The institutions 
mentioned above have not in the past carried on 
educational work to a very large extent, so that it 
stijl remains as a significant fact that the only edu¬ 
cational institution which the 'great majority of 
adults ever attend is the church. Night schools, 
correspondence schools, public lectures, reading 
courses these attract a few; millions of people go 
to church. This lays a heavy responsibility upon 
the church. 

There have been times when the church has dis¬ 
charged that responsibility with considerable fidelity. 
President Faunce in The Educational Ideal in the 
Ministry has a significant chapter on ‘‘ Modern Uses 
of Ancient Scripture,” in which he calls attention to 
the fact that the Bible is the one classic which the 
majority of people can ever know. It is generally 
agreed that the chief value of the knowledge of classic 
literature is not in the acquaintance with a foreign 
tongue, but in the sympathetic appreciation of 
another culture, particularly an ancient culture, 
where the fundamental interests and passions of 


The Adult as a Learner 


57 


human life are portrayed with a simplicity impos¬ 
sible to our complex modernness. 

Millions of slightly schooled Scotchmen, English¬ 
men, Americans have known the Bible classic litera¬ 
ture with a familiarity which went far to make them 
educated men and women. Their English speech 
was purified and enlarged, their imagination. was 
kindled, their range of interest and of thought was 
widened, their moral judgment was strengthened — 
all this besides the religious insight which made them 
brave, patient, honorable, and kind. 

In addition to the biblical knowledge, the church 
gave to its members a considerable theological knowl¬ 
edge. Whatever we may think today of the some¬ 
what elaborate doctrinal preaching and teaching of 
those days and of the somewhat minute points of 
theological inquiry, certain it is that the church was 
able to help a very large number of simple people to 
serious and careful thought upon great prob¬ 
lems. 

Those ecclesiastical disputants who meet us in the 
charming Scottish stories were philosophers with keen 
minds and cogent arguments. The church had 
trained them to be thinkers. So much had it meant 
to the Presbyterians of Ulster that it was said when 
the potato crop failed they could live on the Shorter 
Catechism. 

Of course we are living in different times. Nothing 
is so useless as the endeavor to imitate the past. We 
have different religious interests. But we need not 


58 


A Study of Adult Life 


be less concerned to have a body of earnest, thought¬ 
ful men and women in the church. 

The Field of Religious Knowledge Today. — We 
are thinking of religion as right relationship with God 
and man. We are thinking of God as working in us 
and through us to the making of a good society. 
Religious knowledge thus takes on a wide scope. 

Leaving out the technicalities which belong only to 
the specialists, the adult church member, in order to 
be an intelligent Christian, ought to know something 
about*the following problems: 

1. How has the material universe developed, and 
how may we think of God in relation to it? 

2. How has man developed in the earth and what 
has been the development of the social institu¬ 
tions of family, industry, property, government, 
education, art, marriage, religion? How may 
we think of God in relation to these? 

3. What are the present-day social problems of the 
family, of industry, of politics, of world rela¬ 
tionships, and of the development of backward 
peoples? How may we think of God as con¬ 
cerned in these problems? 

4. In what way may the great religious experiences 
of the Bible, and especially the life and teaching 
of Jesus, help us to see the working of God in 
this great enterprise to which we are committed? 

5. What is the peculiar responsibility and oppor¬ 
tunity of our denomination in the world enter¬ 
prise? 


The Adult as a Learner 


59 


The church must organize its preaching and its 
adult classes so that the people may study these 
problems. Not one of the subjects is beyond the 
ability or is outside the interests of the ordinary 
church member. But the church member does not 
know that he is interested in them. He would even 
regard some of them as beyond the sphere of religion. 
If too technically presented he might call them 
“ highbrow.” The pedagogical task is so to present 
these opportunities of studying the fundamental 
problems of life in their religious significance that the 
adult will become attracted on the 'plane of his intel¬ 
lectual interests and within the scope of his religious 
insight. If a fair beginning is made, it should be 
possible to carry on the religious education of the 

adult through a long period of years. 

« 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Make a survey of the extent of the school 
education of the adult members of your church. 
What is the average? 

2. Make a survey of the reading habits of 

$ 

the people of your church. 

3. Make an examination of the adult classes 
in the community. How far is real thinking 
stimulated? How much reading is under¬ 
taken in connection with the studies? 

4. Make a survey of all the opportunities 
for adult education in your community. 

5. Ask the pastor to give you a list of the 


60 


A Study of Adult Life 


problems which he has discussed during the 
year. Consider whether there are any other 
questions upon which you would have been glad 
to hear him. 

6. Select ten great stories of the Bible. Ask 
ten adults to tell these stories without consult¬ 
ing the text. Tabulate the results. 

7. Ask ten adults how far they have studied 
the five problems mentioned at the close of this 
chapter and how far they think the problems 

' have a religious significance. 

8. Consider yourself as a learner. Estimate 
what you could reasonably achieve in earnest 
study in one year in the time at your com¬ 
mand. Multiply that by twenty years and see 
what is before you as a possibility in becoming 
a more intelligent member of the kingdom of 
God. 

REFERENCES FOR READING 

Charles W. Eliot, Education for Efficiency 
(Houghton Miffiin Co.), pp. 33-54. 

William James, Talks to Teachers on Psy¬ 
chology (Henry Holt and Co.), pp. 116-143. 
*R. S. Woodworth, Psychology (Henry Holt and 
Co.), pp. 389-417. 

W. H. P. Faunce, The Educational Ideal in the 
Ministry (Macmillan), pp. 75-112. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE ADULT AS A WORSHIPER 

The Meaning of Worship. — We no longer think of 
God as requiring worship for his own sake. The 
purpose of worship must be to do us good. Paganism 
looks upon God as a king who demands obeisance, 
praise, and offerings, in return for which he confers 
blessings and averts calamities. Jesus taught us that 
God is Spirit and seeks worshipers who worship in 
spirit and in truth. God does, then, desire to be 
worshiped. But it is because of the spiritual results 
that are made possible by worship. 

If religion is that intimate fellowship with the 
heavenly Father of which Jesus so wonderfully 
speaks, then worship is the expression of that fellow¬ 
ship. Feelings grow by expression. We love more 
when we manifest our love. We are more deeply 
reverential when we do the acts of reverence for what 
is worthy. We experience joy the fuller if we sing 
our happiness. We feel more vividly a desire for 
goodness when we tell one another of our longing. 
Thus the religious feelings are developed by the acts 
of worship. 

God wants us to be religious, even as a father wants 
his children to be affectionate! A father can do more 


62 


A Study of Adult Life 


for a boy who will join him in confidential comrade¬ 
ship. Fatherhood at its best is not a selfish desire for 
appreciation; it is love finding itself in the good of the 
beloved. God must be like that. He knows that 
our sense of his comradeship, our joy in his service, 
our faith in his guidance, will enable us to live our 
common life more nobly. Therefore he can do some 
things for us when we put ourselves in a responsive 
attitude that he cannot do when we are preoccupied. 
He can help his loving, earnest, heart-spoken children 
as he cannot help those who will not seek him. 

Objective and Subjective Worship. — It must be in 
this direction that we shall find the answer to the 
difficult question so often raised today: Is there any 
objective value in worship? that is, does worship ac¬ 
complish something outside of ourselves? We cannot 
answer that question as the Catholic would answer it. 
To him the sacrifice of the mass is a distinctly neces¬ 
sary ritual for the salvation of men. Its efficacy 
consists in its being done aright, in the proper place, 
by a proper official, in the proper form. Even the 
presence of a congregation is unnecessary. Something 
is accomplished by the act itself. 

That does not seem to us to be spiritual religion. 
We cannot think of God as technically requiring any 
specific acts. But if there are practices which help us 
to know him and to live our lives in fellowship with 
him, those practices must be good. They have 
objective value because they have subjective value. 
Prayer does not make God do things for us, but it may 


The Adult as a Worshiper 63 

enable God to do things through us. Confession does 
not induce God to forgive us, but it does make us fit 
to be forgiven. 

Everything, therefore, is resolved into a considera¬ 
tion of what will produce religious results in us. If 
we can find what will develop in us the religious atti¬ 
tudes, we have found the worship that is really ob¬ 
jective; that is, we have put ourselves where God 
can help us. If I want to see the glory of the sunrise, 
I must climb to some height. If I want to hear the 
voice of the thrush, I must go into the woods and 
be quiet. If I want refreshment in the summer 
time, I must bend to drink at the spring or plunge 
my body in the cool waters. 

We must try to think clearly on this problem be¬ 
cause many people are asking today whether worship 
is any longer necessary. “ God . . . dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands He desires “ mercy and 
not sacrifice all life is sacred. So people are ask¬ 
ing whether there is any need to go on singing hymns, 
saying prayers, reading Scriptures, meeting in congre¬ 
gations for religious exercises. If it did any good as 
men used to think, if it secured crops and averted the 
plague and gave success in war, of course we would 
worship. But does it do any good? 

Finding God through Worship. — The answer to the 
foregoing questions is that worship is one of the ways 
of finding God. It is not the only way. Perhaps 
some people find God without it. But for most of 
us, and perhaps for all of us, it is a very good way. 


64 


A Study of Adult Life 


The greatest peril of our modern times is to forget 
God. On the one hand, in a vulgar materialism we 
forget him; on the other hand, in a fine idealism we 
may think we do not need him. But our best humani¬ 
tarian efforts will fail without the sense that in them 
all we are laborers together with God. Worship may 
be a most effective way of keeping vivid the sense of 
the unseen. 

A very thoughtful Christian man said recently that 
he found the church service valuable to him as an 
opportunity for meditation. He was helped not only 
by the thoughts which the minister offered but also 
by the thoughts which came to his own mind by 
virtue of the very fact that he was sitting quietly in 
a responsive mood. We busy people need to learn 
to be quiet. Dr. F. B. Meyer has told us of the value 
of his few moments alone at night when he thinks 
over the experiences of the day and simply opens his 
heart to let voices come to him from the unseen. 

How often it is in the hour of worship that we see 
some duty that has been neglected, or realize some 
opportunity of doing good that can be embraced, or 
perceive the fault of some practice that we indulge. 

In the religious education of the adult the possi¬ 
bilities of this quiet hour on Sunday have not been 
^ measured. We cannot be partisans when we pray. 
We do not dare to ask God to bless America and let 
the rest of the world look after itself. We cannot 
take sides in the industrial conflict. We are com¬ 
pelled to see the problems of society in the largest 


The Adult as a Worshiper 


65 


aspects. From the prayers and the hymns of brother¬ 
hood may come the practice of brotherhood. 

The Relation of Worship to Conduct. — There is a 
story of the Italian bandits who devoutly brought 
one-tenth of their plunder to the shrine of the Virgin. 
With them there was no relation between worship and 
conduct. Religion was religion and business was 
business. We sometimes call that hypocrisy. More 
accurately it is the inability to unify life. 

We see this in another form in the fragmentary lives 
of children. They are concerned only for the things 
of the moment. We wish we could train them to 
take a long look, to appreciate the results of conduct, 
and thus to subordinate the present gratification to 
the larger life. 

. But it is not only criminals and children whose lives 
are fragmentary. The great achievement of a unified 
life is not very common among us. To be sure, adult 
life comes inevitably to have a certain purposeful 
character growing out of the necessity of earning a 
living and bringing up a family. That makes the 
steadiness and the worthfulness of the great majority 
of men and women. Yet it may be merely a hand-to- 
mouth existence after all — life just one thing after 
another. How many people feel the dulness and 
monotony of a life that is such a series of experiences 
of work and pleasure with no glowing sense of spiritual 
meaning! 

It is religion that gives unity and meaning to life. 
Our Christian faith answers the ever-recurring 


66 


A Study of Adult Life 


questions: Whence came I? Why am I here? 
Whither am I going? It is Jesus who gives life 
abundant.. It is the achievement of the kingdom of 
God in all social relations that makes life worth 
living. And worship is the means of keeping us 
conscious of this unity; worship, whose value has 
been expressed in that ever best statement ‘‘ to see 
life steadily and to see it whole.” 

The need of the adult is such a practice of worship 
as will constantly keep before him the meaning of 
life as a great experiment in social living in which 
God is our leader, strengthener, and guide, and in 
which Christ is our example and divine encourage¬ 
ment. 

The Place of Ritual in Worship.— It will readily 
be admitted that great occasions, when the soul is 
stirred by religious song and prayer and speech, are 
able thus to unify life for us and to give us a sense of 
its meaning. But how can ordinary men and women 
in ordinary churches live on such emotional heights? 
And how can our somewhat formal and conventional 
worship have any such quality? It is doubtless the 
barrenness of much church worship that alienates the 
adult and makes him feel that the church service is 
unnatural and unimportant. This suggests at once 
a recognition of the significance of ritual and the 
necessity of vitalizing ritual. 

Ritual is not of course confined to religion. It may 
be defined as the set and recognized form of conduct¬ 
ing socially approved exercises. It plays a very im- 


The Adult as a Worshiper 


67 


portant part in human life. All peoples have exten¬ 
sive rituals covering large ranges of conduct. We 
sometimes think that our free and easy democracy 
has little of these conventions, but the contrary is 
immediately evident if we consider how we shake 
hands, lift our hats, introduce friends, serve a meal, 
conduct a public meeting, not to speak of the more 
solemn ceremonials of marriage and burial. 

Very much akin to ritual are our set forms of speech 
and writing: “ Dear Sir,” “ Yours sincerely,” ” Kind¬ 
est regards,” How do you do? ” ” If you please. 
In our most spontaneous moments we are less original 
than we think. If the actual expressions used by 
ardent lovers could be tabulated, it would probably 
be found that they display a considerable similarity, 
most of them having their origin in the works of the 
poets and of the novelists. The kindliest words that 
we ever use- in sympathy with the distressed and the 
bereaved are after all the phrases that have become 
familiar by repetition. 

All this is simply a recognition of the large common 
stock of feelings, ideas, and expressions which we col¬ 
lectively possess. It is immensely valuable. We 
should find life difficult indeed if at every moment we 
had to invent a new behavior to meet each circum¬ 
stance. 

Thus we are ritualists in religion. We have our 
regular forms of prayer. Who ever prays a wholly 
novel prayer? It might not be very helpful. WY 
have the songs in which Christian feeling has been 


68 


A Study of Adult Life 


expressed through centuries. Who ever develops an 
entirely new way of voicing in song the faith of the 
soul? We have our Scriptures and our preaching. 
They are all old. But so are the ways of home and 
the ways of business and the ways of amusement. 
Originality is the rarest of experiences. 

If the church provides the adult with certain forms 
of religious expression, it is meeting his needs in the 
same way that every other social institution to which 
he belongs meets the needs arising from its own 
relationships. 

The Danger of Ritual.— There is however grave 
danger in ritual and conventionality. They lead 
easily to the devastating vice of insincerity. One 
may be faultlessly correct and as heartless as an 
automaton. In practical life we meet this difficulty 
in one of two ways. Sometimes we break the ritual 
and do the unconventional thing. Instead of shaking 
our friend’s hand we slap him on the back. But if 
that is done too often it becomes another kind of 
ritual. The more effective use of the ritual is simply 
to allow feeling to flow through it. There is a hand¬ 
shake that means friendship, sympathy, cooperation. 
The ritual is there, ready to be made vital. 

The vitalizing of worship is achieved in both of 
these ways. Sometimes we resort to the unconven¬ 
tional attempt to express feeling in ways different 
from the common fashion. More often and more 
regularly we achieve sincerity of expression by infus¬ 
ing into the common fcrms an earnestness which fills 


The Adult as a Worshiper 


69 


them with meaning. Deliberate attention is the 
means by which this is accomplished. 

We sometimes wonder how a famous actor can be 
so completely natural in a part which he has recited 
a thousand times. He could say it in his sleep. 
How, then, can it mean anything to him? He de¬ 
liberately finds something new in it every time he 
repeats it. He looks for some new shade of meaning. 
He studies some different emphasis. He practices a 
slight variety of action. 

One may say the Lord’s Prayer and never mean it 
at all. But let him think what the prayer may mean 
to him this very day, or what it may mean as a social 
prayer for all of us, or what kind of world we should 
have if the prayer could be answered, or how wonder¬ 
ful it is that we are still praying it after all the cen¬ 
turies; let him give some new attention to the old 
ritual and at once it is vitalized. 

So may a hymn become quite a new expression of 
spiritual feeling if some special attention be given to 
the meaning or the singing. A slight change of 
tempo, the use of a pianissimo or fortissimo effect as 
the thought may require will afford such an oppor¬ 
tunity of gaining new meaning from the old form. 

Worship as Community of Faith. — There is a funda¬ 
mental psychology of worship that ought to be more 
clearly understood. It is a kind of pooling of faith. 
It is easier to believe when others believe. It is hard 
to hold any faith in an atmosphere of skepticism. 
Let the members of a congregation feel that each is 


70 


A Study of Adult Life 


bringing all the faith that he has, so that we can pool 
all that we believe about God, Christ, justice, love, 
purity, the increasing goodness of the world, the hope 
of humanity, the life eternal. We are a company of 
people having great resources of faith, we have come 
together to tell one another that we do believe and 
that we want to believe more. We are going to sing 
our faith, declare it by the recital of the great words 
of faith of the past, pray in faith concerning the great 
matters of human interest. We shall listen to a 
sermon and it will challenge us to be believers. Thus 
worship becomes an exercise for the renewing of our 
confidence in all the good things that we believe. 

It is significant that we speak so often of the audi¬ 
ence and of the auditorium instead of using the old 
terms, congregation and church. An audience comes 
to listen; it expects to be warmed, inspired, enter¬ 
tained. It desires to be seated in an auditorium. A 
congregation comes together expecting to worship in 
common. It finds some sanctities even in the build¬ 
ing, and gives to it the name which belonged origi¬ 
nally only to the spiritual community itself. 

If we could develop among church people a sense of 
responsibility for the worship, we should find a new 
life in the churches. We expect that the minister 
shall pray on Sunday morning that he may be enabled 
to help the people to worship. If the laity would 
utter the same prayer and would come to the church 
with an intention deliberately to create an atnios- 
phere favorable to the spirit of worship of others. 


The Adult as a Worshiper 


71 


there would be a revival of religion in a most whole¬ 
some sense. 

The Training of the Worshiper .— We can only 
worship through the forms that we understand. The 
visitor to a church whose liturgy is unfamiliar finds 
himself confused. He may be helped in worship by 
the type of devotion of those about him, by the sense 
of common need and aspiration which a religious 
service include. But he cannot be very much a par¬ 
taker with those who are using forms that have no 
meaning to him. 

The serious lack in most of our churches arises from 
the unfamiliarity of the congregation with the ma¬ 
terials of worship. Our religious education has been 
largely responsible for this. The hymns and prayers 
which we have learned in Sundav school have not 
been those which are used in the adult congregation. 
The young person who has been a dozen years in the 
Sunday school comes into the morning-worship of 
the church and finds himself unfamiliar with much of 
its practice. He- is surrounded by people equally 
unfamiliar for they too have never been trained in the 
ritual. He drops into utter listlessness. Thus we 
have a congregation waiting respectfully through the 
“ preliminary exercises ” for the sermon which is 
supposed to be the main contribution of the hour. 

The worshiper must be trained. Every well 
organized evangelistic campaign reveals how easy it 
is to train a congregation of adults in the ritual that 
is to be employed. But the evangelistic ritual is not 


72 


A Study of Adult Life 


suited to the regular, week-by-week worship, and so 
that training also is wasted. Real hymns are poems 
expressing thought in pictures and feelings in symbols, 
ernploying language that belongs to the historical 
experiences of religion. These must be studied ,in 
order to be appreciated. 

The writer has carried on investigations which 
have shown that intelligent church members have 
sung great hymns for years with never a thought of 
the meaning of the imagery. They have never 
connected “ Nearer, my God, to Thee ” with the 
Bethel experience; never seen the pictures suggested 
by Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah never ana¬ 
lyzed the beautiful suggestions of ‘‘ O Love that wilt 
not let me go.” 

Prayers must be carefully studied and learned in 
order to be used in,worship. Psalms must be under¬ 
stood if they are to be used responsively with feeling. 
Some day we shall have an education in worship that 
will begin with childhood and develop a knowledge of 
. liturgical elements which can be used effectively in 
church. It is strange that the churches with more 
elaborate ritual have most carefully undertaken this 
education, while the churches of less ritual have al¬ 
most entirely neglected it. But there is no need to 
wait for a new generation. If adults will seriously 
undertake to prepare themselves for sincere and 
effective worship, understanding its great oppor¬ 
tunity, they are entirely competent to do so. Ft is 
an important need, for the minister is sorely handi- 


The Adult as a Worshiper 


73 


capped as a leader of worship if his congregation be 
untrained and unresponsive. 

It is important that the study of the worship ele¬ 
ments be kept separate from their use in worship 
itself. Learning a hymn and worshiping with a 
.hymn are two different exercises, involving two en¬ 
tirely different moods. At a great patriotic meeting 
held recently the leader of the “ community sing ” 
entirely spoiled the spirit of the meeting by turning 
it into a singing school, slapping his hands, making us 
repeat verses, showing us how they should be sung, 
etc. The church should have some definite oppor¬ 
tunity for the learning and practice of its hymns, 
prayers, psalms, responses. Sometimes this can be 
done as preliminary to the midweek service. The 
singing school atmosphere is thoroughly appropriate 
for this purpose. The most careful and detailed 
instruction will be given about the methods of singing 
and the responses. But when we worship let us 
forget technique and use well known words with 
spontaneity. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Why in the war days did we hold public 
meetings, sing patriotic songs, observe the 
ritual of the flag and of the national anthem? 
What was the psychological explanation of 
that technique? What bearing has that upon 
religious exercises? 

2. Consider the psychological effect upon 
yourself of the following: (a) You go to church 


74 


A Study of Adult Life 


unexpectant in a listless mood as a matter of 
duty. You do not sing nor read the responses. 
Your mind wanders during the prayer and the 
Scriptures. You read the notices on the calen¬ 
dar during the anthem, (b) You go in the 
same mood but with a companion who rever¬ 
ently bows in silent prayer as soon as ■ he is 
seated, who sings with appreciation, reads the 
responses, with feeling, listens with evident in¬ 
terest to prayer. Scripture and anthem, (c) 
You go desiring a spiritual experience. You 
take your seat and lift up your heart in prayer 
for yourself, the minister, and the congrega¬ 
tion. You note the words of the hymn and 
seek to make them your own as you sing. 
You follow every part of the service, surrender¬ 
ing yourself to its appeal. 

3. How far does religion unify your life? 
Make a list of the activities of a single day. 
How many of them seem to you to be of re¬ 
ligious significance? About how many of 
them could you pray? Upon how many of 
them could you expect divine help? 

4. Make an experiment in this religious 
unifying of life and note the effects in feeling 
and conduct. 

5. Consider the ritual of your own church 
worship. How much of, it is definitely spon¬ 
taneous and how much is the accepted form?' 
How far do you succeed in vitalizing it? What 


The Adult as a Worshiper 


75 


further could be done to make the worship 
significant? 

6' Study your own congregation as a body 
of w'orshipers. Make a list of all the conditions 
that militate against worship — lateness, dis¬ 
turbing chatter, levity of ushers or chorus, 
nervousness of minister, his failure to partici¬ 
pate in the worship himself, listlessness of the 
people, disturbing conditions in the room, heat, 
cold, draught, ugliness, disorder, disrepair of 
the building, etc. 

7. Consider the difference between the psy¬ 
chology of the theatre and that of the church. 
What does the theatre do to avoid distractions? 
Can we learn anything from the care with 
which the actor secures his emotional effects? 
Have we any right to expect the Spirit of God 
to make up for our carelessness? 

8. What is your own church doing in the 
training of children and of adults in the ele¬ 
ments of worship? 

REFERENCES FOR READING 
Richard C. Cabot, What Men Live By (Hough¬ 
ton Mifflin Co.), pp. 267-323. 

Theodore G. Soares, Education in Worship, 
Chap. VH in Theological Study Today 
(University of Chicago Press). 

*James B. Pratt, The Religious Consciousness 
(Macmillan), Chaps. XH to XV, pp. 255— 
336. ' ’■ 


CHAPTER VIII 
CHRISTIAN LIVING 


Christianity is not primarily a doctrine but a life. 
It was significantly called “ The Way ” in the early 
days. Jesus’ parable of the Two Foundations has 
been strangely misinterpreted. He distinctly did not 
say, “ He that heareth these sayings of mine and 
agreeth with them,” but '‘doeth them.” Rock- 
founded character is that which is established in con¬ 
duct. Jesus with his wonderful insight has here 
said exactly what modern psychology says. If you 
believe, you must act upon your faith or you will lose 
it; and if you act as if you did believe, you will come 
to believe. 

Christian Living Is Social Living.— It involves the 
constant attempt to achieve such relations with others 
as grow out of our common part in the family of God. 
From worship comes the inspiration to social living; 
from the study of the Scriptures and of Christian 
literature and from a study of the social conditions of 
the time come the ideals and the rational basis of 
social living. But the supereminent need is the 
practice of social living. 

Here the church is at a disadvantage. A gymna¬ 
sium is sufficient for physical exercises, a place where 
two or three may gather together will suffice for 
spiritual exercise, a classroom affords opportunity for 


Christian Living 


77 


intellectual exercise, but a world is needed for social 
exercise. So the church has generally been obliged 
to content herself with preaching the truth and' telling 
the people to go out and live it. She could neither 
organize nor supervise the social living. 

Of course this statement is not entirely true, because 
the church community itself affords a significant 
opportunity for social living. To be friendly there, 
to undertake the various tasks, including those of 
teaching the young and visiting the sick and especi¬ 
ally the endeavor to win others to the Christian faith, 
have ever been valuable exercises in Christian living. 

Money Giving. — The church has had one very 
significant field of social exercise which has been 
prominent in its services from the first. Many 
important social endeavors can be carried on vigor¬ 
ously by the giving of money. Was it desirable that 
the Gentile church should show its friendship for the 
Jewish church? They could do so by collecting 
money for the poor of Jerusalem. Was the spirit of 
Christian living to be manifested in the care of the 
fatherless and of the widows? An offering in the 
church service afforded an immediate opportunity of 
expressing that spirit. Does one believe in extending 
Christian help to any of the thousand missionary and 
welfare agencies? It can always be done through 
money. 

The church has strongly developed this well known 
and well used means of exercising its members in 
social living, but there is need to go further. The 


78 


A Study of Adult Life 


adult Christian is not sufficiently practiced as a doer 
of the Word by the activities that may be carried on 
within the limits of the Christian community. For 
the larger and more important aspects of social living 
lie beyond these limits. 

The Antagonisms of Modern Life. — Every attempt 
to live in the spirit of Jesus brings us face to face with 
the three serious cleavages of modern society — the 
race cleavage, the national cleavage, the industrial 
cleavage. To consider the religious education of the 
adult apart from these fundamental problems is to 
agree that religion shall deal only_ with superficial 
interests. The pulpit is meeting these problems with 
increasing ability. The men’s and women’s discus¬ 
sion classes are helping to develop intelligence. 
Serious study of social questions ought to be in¬ 
creased. A church is admirably adapted to under¬ 
take such study, for the religious spirit is essential to 
any thorough appreciation of these problems which 
go to the heart of human relations. But how can we 
exercise ourselves in meeting these antagonisms 
aright? We can pray about them, study about 
them, but how can we do anything about them? 

Right Social Attitudes. — It is important to realize 
that the most fundamental contribution that the 
church can make is the creation of right social atti¬ 
tudes. The supreme need of the modern world in 
facing its terrible antagonisms is sympathy. The 
word must not be taken in the sentimental, but in the 
psychological sense. Sympathy is not feeling for 


Christian Living 


79 


another but feeling with another. It is the rare and 
extraordinary ability to put oneself in the place of 
another. It is for the black man to understand how 
'the white man feels on the race question, and vice 
versa. It is for the American to appreciate how the 
Japanese feels in a world dominated by the white 
race. It is for the workman to get the point of view 
of a man who has put all his money into a manufac¬ 
turing enterprise, and for the man with the settled 
position and the assured income to understand the 
position of the laborer whose life and family welfare 
hang on the uncertainty of a job. 

But the sensitive appreciation of the feelings of 
another is exactly what Jesus so wonderfully achieved 
himself and so constantly urged upon his disciples. 
That is the meaning of the Golden Rule. Evidently 
what we need in addition to prayer and study is prac¬ 
tice in the appreciation of other people. 

The Value of Unusual Social Contacts. — The sig¬ 
nificance of the social settlement has not been so much 
in any charitable work done for the poor as in afford¬ 
ing a meeting place for the privileged and the less 
privileged. Leaders like Graham Taylor, Jane Ad- 
dams, Mary McDowell always speak of the respect 
which they have for their immigrant friends. All of 
us need to form these contacts. The church should 
arrange for such opportunities. They may be found 
in the Americanization program that is based on the 
principle of helping the new comer to make himself at 
home in the new land. 


80 


A Study of Adult Life 


Class and social meetings may be the means of 
mutual understanding, but utmost care needs to be 
taken to avoid the patronizing spirit, for that is the 
negation of the spirit of Christ. Some intimate con- • 
tact with a foreign family will reveal neighborly 
kindlinesses, brave and patient endurance, earnest 
efforts to improve their slender opportunities, that 
may well evoke the admiration of any of us. 

An excellent custom is growing up in university 
neighborhoods where there are foreign students. 
Americans invite the young men and women to their 
homes and thus come into contact with these inter¬ 
esting representatives of foreign cultures. The guest 
has the pleasure of seeing American family life, the 
host has the opportunity of finding out that “ a man’s 
a man for a’ that.” 

The Forum, if wisely and carefully conducted, may 
go further than the mere intellectual study of a 
problem. It may afford opportunities of social 
contact. Why should not representatives of differ¬ 
ent interests talk to us in the church, presenting their 
points of view, opening up their hearts that we may 
see what they really want to accomplish? There is 
value in personal relations. From such friendly 
meetings in the church, where the religious sanctions 
are respected, there might come more helpful meet¬ 
ings in the shops and about the tables of conference. 

International discussions might be carried on with 
this same attempt to form personal relations. Today 
on important questions there are points of view 


Christian Living 


81 


Jewish, Polish, French, Russian, German, Italian, 
Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Filippino, South American, 
Mexican. It is highly educative for people of the 
various nationalities to tell us why they think and 
act as they do. It is possible to sympathize with 
them all. Indeed, there can be no intelligent Ameri¬ 
can point of view, still less a Christian point of view, 
until we have sympathized with them all. Let it be 
understood that sympathy does not necessarily mean 
agreement; it means understanding. 

Party politics, business interests, newspaper policies, 
are so likely to lead us astray that it is of the highest 
importance for us to endeavor to know something of 
the different peoples of the earthy to appreciate their 
plans, their hopes, their ambitions and their animosi¬ 
ties. The world full of hatred and distress needs 
some common purpose, a common friendship. The 
Christian church has the highest responsibility to 
train its members that they may have their part in 
socializing the discordant elements of the world’s 
life. 

How far the church as such shall go, beyond what 
has been thus indicated, and take part in the great 
controversies of the day, cannot be here discussed. 
Local conditions and special emergencies have much 
to do with determining that question. Perhaps the 
church can be most effective as it sends its members 
into all political parties and into all the great con¬ 
troversies imbued with that social-sympathy which is 
the very spirit of the message of the Master. We are 


82 


A Study of Adult Life 


here concerned to point out that definite exercises of 
such’ social sympathy are an essential part of the 
religious education of the adult. We are all in the 
church to help one another in this process of continu¬ 
ous education, for we have not yet attained nor are we 
already made perfect in social living: 

Welfare Agencies.— More specific opportunity to 
be doers of the W^ord lies in the volunteer service 
that is needed by the various welfare agencies. Not 
only in the cities but in the towns and in the better 
organized rural communities there are institutions for 
helping those who are handicapped in the struggle of 
life. 

It is found that, in addition to the professional 
workers needed in the various charities to supply ex¬ 
pert direction, large numbers of men and women can 
be used as friendly visitors and counsellors. A 
lawyer may give an evening a week to those who are 
in legal difficulties and in danger of being exploited. 
A mechanic can give instruction to boys in shop work. 
There is abundant opportunity for all kinds of teach¬ 
ing. The social service of women is valuable in all 
domestic and medical lines. Beautiful ministries are 
possible to those who can amuse shut-ins, people in 
hospitals and infirmaries, orphanages and old people’s 
homes. 

We have really put great emphasis upon these 
activities for young people but the elders need them 
as well. No matter how busy we become and how 
important our time, we need to keep alive the sense 


Christian Living 


83 


of our common human fellowship by some constant 
acts of personal service. It is well known that Glad¬ 
stone in his busiest years was unwilling to express his 
sense of obligation to those less fortunate by gifts of 
money alone. He always contrived some simple 
ways of giving himself. 

What we all did during the war in the Red Cross 
service is only an indication of what can always be 
done as long as. there are any who are wounded in the 
campaign of life. Let it be remembered that we are 
here speaking not so much of the advantage to those 
who are helped, as of the educational value to those 
who do the service. Psychologically, the adult needs 
this kind of exercise. In the absence of it his religion 
will change its quality. 

The Missionary Enterprise.— Large opportunities 
for the development of social living lie in a right re¬ 
lationship to the world mission of the church. 

Perhaps one of the greatest needs of the American 
is the international mind. This does not mean of 
course an indifference to patriotism. It has nothing 
to do with the internationalism of the radical socialist. 
It is simply the ability to think in world terms instead 
of in merely provincial terms. 

The World War thrust us out into the world’s life. 
We realized the high obligation of saving Armenia 
from destruction, of checking typhus in Serbia, of 
preserving the fatherless children of France. Our 
people were broadened and developed in this generous 

t 

thinking. The efforts which they made and the 


84 


A Study of Adult Life 


money which they gave produced a world sympathy 
of extraordinary power. We must not lose that 
breadth of devotion and largeness of soul. 

We may be divided somewhat as regards foreign 
politics but we can keep the essential world sympathy 
by an increased activity in the missionary endeavor. 

The enlarged gifts for medical missions, educational 
missions, industrial development, as well as for 
evangelism, are the highest indications that American 
Christians are thinking in world terms and realizing 
that the good gifts of God are to be shared with all 
his children. 

The possibilities of the reaction of the missionary 
spirit upon the political spirit are immeasurable. 
Everyone agrees that international selfishness is the 
supreme danger of today. How significant that the 
Christian church should engage upon an enlarged 
program of international unselfishness! 

It is again of the highest importance that there be 
no condescension to the ‘‘ poor heathen.” The 
splendid achievements of the Asiatic peoples and the 
simple culture of the African peoples may well excite 
our admiration. We share our best with them be¬ 
cause they are worth it. The ablest missionaries 
always tell us of the fine character and possibilities of 
the people among whom they work. 

The “ Every-Member Canvass.” —This method 
which has been developed of recent years in order to 
raise church expenses and missionary apportionments 
is an admirable technique of adult religious education. 


Christian Living 


85 


It has included in the active work of the church men 
and women who were either too busy or too timid to 
engage in public service. The personal relationship 
of man with man in the discussion of the Christian 
responsibility on money giving develops both of them. 
Perhaps the greatly increased money that has come 
into the church is even less important than the enrich¬ 
ment of the religious interest that has come to so 
many thousands of men and women in this activ- 
itv. 

The Reaction of Service upon Worship. — It is 

difficult to have a very vital faith that God is working 
in the world if we are doing nothing ourselves. A 
working church is a praying church and a singing 
church. 

Some people are afraid of the present-day tendencies 
of social service, philanthropy and the interest in 
social justice, lest these be substituted for religion. 
They are properly the expressions of religion. If the 
church recognizes these activities as the working out 
in human life of its own message, the people who are 
busy as doers of the Word will naturally be interested 
to be hearers of the Word. 

, SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Consider how far your church within its 
own activities affords definite opportunities 
for expressing in action the spirit of Jesus. Is 
this a sufficiently large field for Christian 
exercise? 


86 


A Study of Adult Life 


2. Where in your own community is there 
opportunity for the kind of activity which can 
be called Christian? In what ways is the 
church promoting such activities? 

3. Ask ten church members what they are 
doing to meet the problem (a) of race antago¬ 
nism, (b) of international ill-feeling and mis¬ 
understanding, (c) of industrial strife. 

4. In what ways is the church helping the 
members to meet these problems? 

5. Make a survey of activities of your mem¬ 
bership in what is generally called “ social 
service.” What means has the church under¬ 
taken for promoting such activities? 

6. Ask ten of these workers what relation 
their social activities bear to their religious 
faith. 

7. How far does the membership of the 
church know what is being done by the mem¬ 
bers in social service? Is there any way in 
which this information could vitalize the wor¬ 
ship of the church? 

8. Make a survey of the volunteer workers 
in the welfare agencies of the city. What 
proportion of them are church members? 
Does the church secure the full inspiration of 
their service? Do they feel that the church 
regards them as its representatives? 


Christian Living • 


87 


REFERENCES FOR READING 

Graham Taylor, Religion in Social Action 
(Dodd, Mean and Co.), pp. 211-258. 

H. F. Ward, The New Social Order (Mac¬ 
millan), pp. 328-354. 

Allan Hoben, The Church School of Citizen¬ 
ship (University of Chicago Press), pp. 
130-171. 

Federal Council of Churches, What Every 
Worker Should Know About His Com¬ 
munity, 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PARENTAL EXPERIENCE 

The Psychological Significance of Parenthood.— 

Marriage and parenthood are major experiences in 
human life. They involve changes in social relation¬ 
ships of very far-reaching character. The irrespon¬ 
sible young man, who has had only himself to think 
of and to care for, finds himself with the obligation of 
maintaining a home and of regulating his life with 
reference to the interest of another. The light¬ 
hearted girl, who is perhaps somewhat frivolous and 
care-free, assumes the dignities and responsibilities of 
house mistress with the inevitable preoccupations 
which that function involves. 

The expectancy and birth of a child involve ex¬ 
periences that are second to none in human life in 
their critical and interesting character. The serious 
limitations imposed upon the mother, and in many 
ways shared by the father, necessitate a considerable 
reorganization of the life program. 

The home assumes an increased importance. The 
child inevitably becomes central in thought and plan. 
This involves very definite inhibitions. The parent 
is constantly refusing the urge of impulses to personal 
gratification for the larger interest in the welfare of 


The Parental Experience 


89 


the child. New habits of thought and of conduct are 
formed. The parental instinct, one of the most 
deeply rooted that we possess, is having its full 
expression. 

Where parenthood is normal and healthy the 
emotions arising from the care of the child, the pleas¬ 
ure in its responses, the sense of wonder in the achiev¬ 
ing of a new personality constitute a zest of living 
that is of great social significance. 

There is always the possibility of a contrary effect. 
One or both of the parents may find that the restraint 
imposed by the presence of the child is irksome or 
even irritating. Protest against this interference 
with freedom may have marked results in temper and 
disposition. If there is an effort to escape responsi¬ 
bility, there is the definite moral loss that always 
comes to the shirker. If only one of the parents 
takes this attitude, there is the sense of unfairness on 
the part of the other with all the resulting evil effects. 

The Training of Children .— As the child grows up 
in the home, and especially if there are several chil¬ 
dren, the psychological conditions become more 
complex. There is the contact of the more and the * 
less mature minds, the problem of mutual under¬ 
standing. We are accustomed to think of these 
problems particularly from the point of view of the 
development of the child. He is forming habits, 
taking on attitudes, getting the sense of right and 
wrong. But the parents are not unchanged in the 
process. There is the development of new habits in 


90 


A Study of Adult Life 


them. Whether the parent yields to the caprice of 
the child, lays down the law and requires obedience, 
or carefully organizes the life situations so as to help 
the child to effective conduct, is of the greatest pos¬ 
sible importance in the development of the parent 
himself. 

Thus any scheme of adult religious education must 
take account of the extraordinary opportunity 
afforded by the parenthood experience. That which 
may take the young parents away from the activities 
of the church may at the same time render them very 
sensitive to the religious meanmg of life. When the 
advent of the child has such religious significance it 
is probably one of the profoundest spiritual experi¬ 
ences that we ever know. 

The Social Significance of the Family.— The family 
is the unit of society. It is a little society in itself. 
When we speak of the whole human family we are 
recognizing that the greater human society has grown 
out of the simple unit. If one thinks of an old-time 
family on the farm or of a modern family on a camping 
trip the social interactions and cooperations are im¬ 
mediately apparent. There is division of labor, the 
father doing the heavier work, the mother the special 
domestic work, the older boys helping in the man’s 
duties, the older girls in the woman’s duties, and even 
the younger children having their appointed tasks. 
There is a community of interest in the group, “ all 
for each and each for all.” The common meal 
gathers them together, common amusements are 


The Parental Experience 


91 


shared. If there are any possibilities of danger they 
are met by united effort. 

The more sophisticated life of the city changes 
somewhat these conditions. Instead of milking the 
cow, one brings in the bottles of milk from the door¬ 
step. Instead of chopping the wood one turns on the 
gas. Father’s work is away and unrelated to the 
home life. The children with exacting school duties 
and a thousand means of diversion regard household 
tasks as irksome. But these conditions only indicate 
the necessity of some changes of family organization. 
They do not mean that the essential character of the 
family is changed. 

It still remains that the institution of profoundest 
social significance is the family. No school or church 
can take its place in the education of the children. 
The intimacies of the home, the significance of blood 
relationship, the community of interest that gives 
coherence to this group, afford opportunities for the 
development of social qualities of incomparable value. 

Social Development in the Family.— We are de¬ 
liberately in this discussion thinking of these values 
only from the standpoint of the parents. What then 
is the social education for them in family life? Here 
is the finest opportunity for developing such a spirit 
of comradeship that controversies about rights and 
duties will scarcely arise. The father will not nicely 
calculate the minimum that can satisfy his family. 
He will ever plan to do for them his best. The mother 
will not grudgingly give her time and strength, but 


92 


A Study of Adult Life 


will gladly spend hours for the family good, finding 
her reward in the common happiness. This requires 
not only love but also judgment, observation, self- 
control. Even between themselves the husband and 
wife may be too indulgent. Many a selfish husband 
thinks that he does his part in supplying the money 
and many a selfish wife thinks she does her part in 
spending it. The development of Christian habits 
involves care that one’s generosity is not taken ad¬ 
vantage of. Very nice adjustments are here neces¬ 
sary if the mates are really to be sharers of a common 
life. 

But this is far more true with regard to the children. 
One of the greatest moral dangers of today is the un¬ 
selfish mother. She may so easily produce selfish 
children. Her very delight in taking care of the child, 
making him happy, may cause him to develop habits 
of self-assertion, disregard of the convenience and 
happiness of others, unwillingness to bear his share 
of the common burdens. Parents have done far 
more for their children wTen they have trained them 
to cheerful cooperation in the tasks of the home 
than when they have merely given them opportunities 
of showy accomplishment. 

There is always danger from unwillingness to make 
the moral effort required in the training of children. 
Said one mother, “ I always pick up after my children. 
It is a great deal easier to do it than to be fussing 
about getting them to do it.” Suppose the school 
teacher should say that it was easier to do the arith- 


The Parental Experience 


93 


metic herself than to teach the children to do it. 
Training is always a taxing process. That mother 
was about six years too late. She should have been 
a student of child nature from the beginning and have 
learned how children can be led to get the apprecia¬ 
tion of order and satisfaction in playing their part in 
the common life of the home. 

A well-to-do father said to the writer, “ My problem 
is how to make life hard enough for my boys. I had 
to do a man’s work on the farm when I was thirteen. 
My boys expect to do nothing.” He was tackling his 
problem too late. You cannot impose artificial hard¬ 
ships on children in order to toughen them. A 
careful study of boy nature and of the conditions of 
his spacious household might have shown that father 
how from earliest childhood those lads could have 
taken some worthy part in the making of the home. 
It was the opportunity for the man and the boys to 
develop a real comradeship. 

The Religious Significance of the Family.— The 
noble summary of.religious living given by Micah is 
peculiarly possible in the family. There the simple 
relationships of life make possible the achievement of 
justice. There a thousand opportunities are offered 
to practice kindness. And there may be developed 
the reverence, the sense of the sanctities, that leads 
to the humble walk with God. The world is sorely 
in need of this type of living. Where shall we learn 
its beauty and its efficiency if not in the home? 

It is a most significant fact for the parent to con- 


94 


A Study of Adult Life 


sider that the holiest terms of religion are taken from 
the family. God is called a Father. . The prophet 
said, “ As one whom his mother comforteth,” so will 
the Lord comfort you. Jesus is the elder brother and 
his disciples are brethren. It is for the parents to 
invest the sacred words with meaning by the life that 
is lived in the family. Happy the child whose parent 
helps him to understand God. But it means more 
than love, more than self-denial for the children. It 
means scientific understanding of the way to develop 
the children in social living. It means the self- 
control, the patience, the constant experiment to 
carry that scientific knowledge into practice. 

The Family Is an Educational Institution.— It 
seems as if the school took our children from us for 
the major part of the time. But the family has the 
educational opportunity that is connected with 
getting ready for the day; with the forms, courtesies, 
and conversations of the family meals; with the play 
and companionship outside of the school life; with 
the significant anniversaries and festivals of the 
family; with the contribution to be made to the work 
of the home, especially taking* care of one’s own 
things; with the voluntary reading, including the 
important matter of newspapers and magazines; with 
the evening occupations including the questions of 
public amusements; with Saturday and Sunday 
practices; with nearly three months’ vacation when 
school and church relax their efforts; with the whole 
economic life of the child, including the questions of 


The Parental Experience 


95 


earning money, purchasing clothes and other neces¬ 
sities, spending on pleasures, giving money for others' 
welfare; with all the questions of justice and fair 
play that arise in the home or come into the family 
for arbitration; with the development of the habits of 
kindness and consideration toward other members of 
the group and toward those outside the group; and 
finally with the personal religious life of the child, 
the attitudes of reverence and wonder, the experience 
of prayer, the sense of God as friend and as the great 
helper of goodness, the common religious spirit that 
binds the family together in the great sanctities of life. 

Two young people marry and set up a home: do 
they realize the educational responsibility they as¬ 
sume? We demand that our teachers be trained. 
May parents think themselves competent for their 
delicate task through mere good will? A word should 
here be said to meet the superficial objection that often 
gains a laugh in private conversation or in public 
address. It is easy to speak of the good, old-fashioned 
parents who knew nothing about psychology and 
scientific hygiene and who brought up the sturdy race 
that has done the great American task. It is easy 
also to sneer at the theorists, generally supposed to 
be childless themselves, who can bring up children on 
paper. 

No doubt there have always been noble and sensible 
fathers and mothers whose tact, judgment, firmness 

t 

and kindness have produced homes where young lives 
might grow in health and holiness. No doubt the 


96 


A Study of Adult Life 


most careful theoretical discussions must be con¬ 
stantly checked up with actual practice with the 
individual child. But one only needs to examine in 
the most superficial way the appalling ignorance of 
parents on matters that are thoroughly understood by 
scientific students to recognize that modern parents 
haye no more right to excuse themselves from careful 
preparation for their educational task on the ground 
that Abraham Lincoln had a good mother who was 
ignorant of psychology than the physician has a right 
to neglect to keep abreast of his science on the ground 
that people were healthy before the germ theory of 
disease was understood. The home is a major edu¬ 
cational institution and the responsibility is upon 
parents to be intelligent educators. 

The Education of Parents.— Parenthood, then, 
affords the opportunity for a marked advance in 
adult education. Here is the highest possible motive. 
It is not simply education for one’s own improvement 
or for vocational success: it is the acquisition of 
ability to help the little lives for whose being we are 
responsible. How then is the educational process to 
be carried through? 

If one should say that a successful parent needs to 
be well grounded in biology and hygiene, psychology 
and pedagogy, sociology and ethics, and especially in 
theology, it would seem that one was playing with 
absurdity. It might freely be admitted that these 
great subjects would be a valuable education for 
adults but how many parents have either the time or 


The Parental Experience 


97 


preparation for such studies? Yet in a simple way, 
available to the busiest parent of ordinary intelligence, 
the elements of these important subjects may be 
understood. If we translate these technical terms 
into common language they mean simply that parents 
will undertake to learn something about how to keep 
the baby healthy, how human nature acts in child¬ 
hood, how simple lessons of conduct can be taught, 
how people can live together, how the ideas and 
practices of right and wrong can be developed, what 
we can teach our children about religion. 

(a) Hygiene.— The father and mother looking for¬ 
ward to the birth of their first baby might read with 
fascinating interest some simple book dealing with the 
structure of the human body, the simple functions of 
life, the preservation of health. It would be excel¬ 
lent education for them as well as good preparation 
for the baby. 

(b) Psychology.— This is a formidable word but it 
simply means the study of human nature. When a 
fond parent watches for the first word which his child 
shall utter he is a psychological investigator. All he 
needs is a little guidance to enable him to watch the 
child’s development carefully and some knowledge of 
what has been learned by watching other children 
and he can become a serious student of child nature. 
This is one of the most broadening of studies. 

Moreover it is important to remember that each 
child has some individual peculiarities. Every child 
therefore should be the subject' of very special study. 


98 


A Study of Adult Life 


He cannot be found catalogued and explained in the 
books. Who then is the proper person to study that 
individual child? Not the teacher who does not get 
him until he is several years old and who has to en¬ 
deavor to study fifty children. Only the parents can 
effectively study that child and they will profit more 
than the child in the process. 

(c) Pedagogy.— How can the young child be led 
away from a fit of temper? Shall he be coaxed or 
scolded or bribed or punished or led into some more 
interesting activity? How can he be taught a prayer 
or a hymn so that he will feel their value? That is 
pedagogy, the study of the art of teaching. There is 
a wide literature simple and interesting in this fas¬ 
cinating field. 

(d) Social Life.— What is the proper form of family 
organization? How can its life be regulated? What 
shall be the place of each member in it? How shall 
the family budget be drawn up and carried out? 
How shall the family relate itself to other families and 
to the community? The consideration of these prac¬ 
tical problems, discussion in groups of parents, the 
study of some simple book on the subject constitute 
an excursion into the field of sociology. It has large 
educational value. It need not be technical nor 
difficult at all. It is simply a consideration of those 
interests that we all have in common. 

(e) Ethics.— Why is anything right or wrong? 
How can children understand right and wrong? Are 
we to require obedience to what we consider right or 


The Parental Experience 


99 


help them to discover duty for themselves? May 
certain conduct be right for the child which would be 
WTong for the adult, and if so what does that mean 
about standards of conduct? The answer to these 
practical and important questions is the study of 
ethics. Every one needs to think as clearly as pos¬ 
sible in this field. The parent in seeking to be a wise 
guide for his child may give himself a valuable ethical 
education. 

(f) Religion.— What shall we teach about God? 
How shall we explain the biblical miracles? What 
shall we teach about Christ, salvation, immortality? 
A class for parents recently undertaken by an able 
pastor led to a series of discussions on these funda¬ 
mental questions of theology with the result that 
what .was supposed to be a technical subject of inter¬ 
est only to ministers was found to be of definite 
practical interest to men and women in their every¬ 
day religious life. 

The experience of parenthood therefore opens the 
way to an educational development that can be of 
the highest intellectual, moral, and religious signifi¬ 
cance. The church should take advantage of this 
great opportunity and by providing classes, organiz¬ 
ing reading, arranging lectures, stimulate young 
parents to undertake these studies that will keep 
them alert and efficient as worthy members of society. 


100 


A Study of Adult Life 


SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Think of ten young people who have been 
married within the last few years. Try to 
estimate what changes have taken place in 
them as a result of family life. 

2. Make a study of some family where there 
are several children. Consider (a) whether 
each member is doing his part toward the 
family life, (b) whether any member is imposed 
upon; if so, endeavor to estimate the cause, 
(c) whether anyone is shirking; if so, endeavor 
to estimate the cause. 

3. Compare if possible two families, one in 
which cooperation in family duties is of a high 
order and one in which it is seriously lacking. 
Endeavor to estimate the resultant effect on 
the temper, disposition, social attitudes, re- . 
ligious attitudes, of each member of the family. 

4. Read Micah 6 : 8 and consider how far 
these requirements can be fulfilled in family 
life. 

5. Make a list of all the activities of some 
family where there are several children. Con¬ 
sider how many of these offer opportunities of 
education to the parents. 

6. Ask ten parents what books they have 
read on child life and training. Ask them 
what help came to them from the reading. 

7. Ask ten parents what religious results 


The Parental Experience 


101 


have come to their own lives from the presence 
of their children. 

8. In what ways does your church emphasize 
the significance of parenthood? 

9. Is there a Parent-Teachers’ Association 
in your community? What is its significance? 

REFERENCES FOR READING 

Henry F. Cope, Religious Education in the 
Family (University of Chicago Press), pp. 
46-59; 183-197; 259-267. 

George Hodges, The Training of Children in 
Religion (Appleton Co.), pp. 104-119. 
Luther Allan Weigle, The Training of Children 
in the Christian Family (Pilgrim Press), the 
whole discussion is valuable. 


CHAPTER X 


THE ADULT IN YOUTH LEADERSHIP 

The present generation holds a great responsibility 
for the next generation, whether the individual has 
children of his own or not. We recognize this in dis¬ 
tributing the expense of public education over the 
whole population. Socially minded adults always 
recognize it when any scheme for the betterment of 
youth is proposed, and all adults who take this re¬ 
sponsibility seriously are broadened in knowledge and 
sympathy by the attention given to the problems of 
youth. All that has been said regarding religious 
education through parenthood has a wider applica¬ 
tion therefore to all adult life. 

The Relation of the Adult to Youth 

Adult life would be very different from what it is 
if there were no young folk to take into account. 
Adult experience is modified in a thousand ways by 
the presence of youth. This is most evident of course 
in the family where younger and older live together. 
But the streets are also full of boys and girls. Boys 
bring our newspapers, our telegrams and our parcels. 
They carry our golf bags. Girls are our secretaries 
and stenographers and telephone operators. Young 
people wait upon us in the stores and fill a thousand 
of the less exacting positions in life. Young people 


The Adult in Youth Leadership 103 

are in the cars, the places of amusement, the parks, 
the churches. They are ever reacting in their own 
ways to the conditions of life and we are constantly 
aware of their conduct. We recognize with grave 
concern that to a large extent young people are the 
criminals making life and property unsafe. For good 
or for ill they are ever the daring spirits whose ways 
seem often unaccountable. 

Young people do not think and feel in quite the 
same way as adults. They see things differently. 
They have different habits and practices. How is 
the adult to relate himself to this multitude of im¬ 
mature people who are constantly crossing his path? 
His attitude toward them will profoundly affect his 
own life, his disposition, his character, his moral and 
religious outlook. 

Opposition to Youth.— Some adults try simply to 
ignore youth. They find the ways of young people 
constantly annoying. They do not care to try to 
understand them. They simply have as little to do 
with them as possible. This is even sometimes the 
case with people who have children of their own and 
the attitude sometimes extends to their own children. 
But Jesus said, “ Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not: for to such belongeth 
the kingdom of God.” Evidently to take the oppo¬ 
site attitude is to put ourselves opposite to Jesus. 
Adult life uninfluenced by youth tends to be self- 
contained, self-satisfied, unirnaginative, unsympa¬ 
thetic, sometimes even harsh. 


104 


A Study of Adult Life 


Tolerance of Youth.— Another attitude of the 
adult toward young people is that of frank tolerance 
without understanding. Youth is here and has a 
perfect right to be here. It is immature with very 
strange and inexplicable behavior. We put up with 
it good-naturedly as we do with unripe fruit, recog¬ 
nizing that it will be better by and by. Probably the 
extent of misunderstanding between younger and 
older people is much greater than is often realized. 
The adult has developed habits of life which seem so 
reasonable and inevitable that he naturally expects 
the boys and girls to do what he does. Constantly he 
finds them disappointing him. He shrugs his shoul¬ 
ders and hopes for the best. Those people of very 
regular habits cannot understand why the young 
people want to sit up half the night, why they delight 
in noise, why they can enjoy the “ comics ” in the 
newspapers and in the movies, and in short, why they 
do not prefer their comforts to their pleasures. 

This attitude may easily become that of the old 
fogy. It easily leads to that pathetic admiration for 
the good old days which spoils the enthusiastic hope of 
the future. It tends to cultivate forgetfulness of one’s 
own period of immaturity and to foster the notion 
that we were so much better when we were young. 
It is a stultifying attitude for the adult and robs him 
of the possibility of helpful youth leadership. 

Indulgence of Youth.— The third type of relation¬ 
ship between the young and old is that of good-natured 
indulgence. Feeling that we are only young once 


The Adult in Youth Leadership 


105 


the kindly adult wishes the young people to have all 
the fun they can. He holds the hopeful theory that 
human nature somehow rights itself as it goes along, 
that most of us “ muddle through,” and he washes 
his hands of responsibility. 

Of course this is not leadership at all. This is 
simply a refusal to give the young people the benefit 
of the experience of the past. With a kindly determi¬ 
nation not to hamper them, it fails in anywise to help 
them. The adult who takes this view is not likely to 
develop any great moral purpose in his own life. He 
is failing in the supreme duty we have, the endeavor 
to help the next generation to be more efficient, more 
socially minded, more religious than the generation 
which is now rather unsatisfactorily carrying on the 
affairs of the world. 

Appreciation of Youth.— What then are the possi¬ 
bilities of a genuine leadership of youth ^ Most im¬ 
portant is the understanding of the problems of 
youth. It is very wonderful but it is very hard to be 
young. Youth is growing and is therefore a constant 
surprise to itself. Youth is in a world governed, 
ordered, standardized by adults. Youth has im¬ 
pulses and desires which are forever conflicting with 
the system of things. The boy or girl has therefore a 
constant problem of adjustment. 

It is sometimes said of a man that he has forgotten 
that he was a boy. As' a matter of fact every man 
has forgotten that he was a boy but some have for¬ 
gotten more thoroughly than others. No one can 


106 . 


A Study of Adult Life 


put himself back and relive the experiences of seven 
or of seventeen. That actual experience has been so 
often reinterpreted that it is gone forever. But by 
tact, comradeship, sympathy, and ,study one may 
understand measurably well the play of forces in the 
young life and realize something of the actual prob¬ 
lems which the youth confronts. 

The Problems of Youth 

The Problem of School.— The opportunity of edu¬ 
cation seems to the adult to be of priceless worth. To 
the youth the school discipline often seems to be a 
meaningless imposition. He must take it whether he 
will or not. He has not even the opportunity of 
collective bargaining. Happily, very many of our 
young people appreciate the value of education and 
find meaning and satisfaction in it. Happily, many 
of our schools are becoming more and more interesting 
in their procedure. But educational improvement is 
one of our major needs. Every adult ought to be 
vitally interested in the matter. A study of the im¬ 
provements in education, of the forward plans of the 
modern school, is one of the most enlightening occu¬ 
pations in which one can engage. 

Moreover, almost every adult has an opportunity 
to help some boy or girl in the school relationship. 
The Sunday-school teacher, the club director, the 
settlement worker, the volunteer in any juvenile 
organization, the uncle or aunt as well as the parents, 
and often just the friend of the family can wonder- 


The Adult in Youth Leadership 107 

* 

fully help if there is first an understanding of the 
school problem. How often the sympathetic word 
has sent the boy or girl back to the discipline which 
will change the whole of subsequent life. 

The Problem of Play .— An even greater field for 
youth leadership is play. We all can understand 
something about the meaning of play and we ought 
to understand more. If anything has come clearly 
out of our studies and experiments in religious edu¬ 
cation it is that the highest social values lie in well 
directed play. A significant committee of Canadian 
churchmen recently made the deliverance: “If 
education is to be divided into material and spiritual 
aspects, play must be put on the side of the spiritual.” 

But strangely enough youth does not know how to 
play. It needs guidance and leadership and will 
gladly accept them. The adult who knows how to 
lead in the joyous experience will be richly developed 
in sympathy, freedom, and' in the zest of living. A 
valuable exercise for a group of adults would be to 
study the opportunities of play in their neighborhood, 
to consider the kinds of play that are socially valuable, 
and to take some definite steps to develop the recrea¬ 
tional activities of their community. A group of 
middle-aged, well-to-do business men recently awoke 
to the needs of boys in a great city. They organized 
a boys’ club in the worst district of the city. The 
men gave not only their money but their personal 
interest and effort. The district passed from the 
largest average of delinquency to the smallest and the 


108 


A Study of Adult Life 


men declare it was more fun than anything they had 
ever tried in their lives. 

Personal Problems.— Young people have problems 
of vocation, of moral struggle, of choice between 
different lines of conduct, of personal religion. Some 
adult can always lead toward a solution of these 
problems. It may not be the parent. It may be 
the teacher or some friend who has proved to be 
accessible and worthy of confidence. What a rare 
privilege is that confidence! What a purifying and 
inspiring experience to be the confessor of any young 
soul! Adults who seriously endeavor to understand 
young people, who sympathetically listen to them, 
who find ways of companionship with them, and who 
help them in the solution of their difficulties, keep in 
touch with the realities of life in a way that is quite 
impossible to those who only live with people of their 
own age. 

Opportunities of Youth Leadership 

The Teacher.— We naturally think first of the 
Sunday school. The Sunday school should have the 
advantage over the day school that the ablest men and 
women of mature judgment and large experience 
would be teachers. But how seldom is that the case. 
How often the work is turned over to the kindly, 
incompetent people who have not very much else to 
do. Adult church members must think of the oppor¬ 
tunity of leading a group of boys or girls as one of the 
major opportunities of life. It requires the most 


The Adult in Youth Leadership 


109 


careful training and preparation and offers the most 
blessed reward. No one was ever a good teacher of a 
class in religion without getting benefits far beyond 
the expenditure of time and effort. 

Careless teaching by one who knows that he has 
not prepared himself and that he is not doing the best 
for the young folk is a morally debasing experience. 
It is utterly unworthy of a Christian. But the busy 
man or woman who will determine to be competent 
to help a class to a deeper religious understanding and 
a more earnest solution of life’s problems is engaging 
in one of the most soul-enlarging endeavors that can 
be found. 

This suggests at once the great responsibility of 
' teacher training which the church is just beginning 
seriously to undertake. The adults need it. It is 
even more important for them than for the children. 
The recognition of high standards and the earnest 
effort to get them will give us a church membership 
that is intelligent, open-minded, spiritually vigorous. 

The Director.— We are no longer thinking of 
Sunday-school leadership as confined to the hour on 
Sunday. It branches into club life, boy and girl 
scout troops, play activities, dramatic and musical 
interests, simple church activities, various forms of 
social service, community welfare. All these require 
competent adult leadership. All offer opportunities 
for the development of the adult in fitting himself for 
the task and carrying it on effectively. The leader¬ 
ship should not be confined to the younger adults. 


110 


A Study of Adult Life 


Many of these activities are better performed by 
older people. No one needs to do too much. The 
work can be divided, affording wide opportunities for 
all the talents in the church and for the development 
of a corps of trained leaders who are living with the 
boys and girls. 

Educational Values to the Adult 

These various types of leadership will always be 
undertaken with the motive of helping the young 
people, but they will inevitably carry with them 
educational advantages of the highest character to 
the leaders themselves. 

Intellectual Development.— The intellectual studies 
discussed in the preceding chapter will all be included.' 
There is a growing literature of great significance on 
the psychology of youth, the problems of youth, the 
values and opportunities of play, vocational direction, 
biblical, ethical and social teaching material. No one 
can undertake such studies without finding himself 
engaged in an extension college course. 

The best way to learn is to teach. The real teacher 
must know the meaning of the subject into which he 
is undertaking to lead a class. The eager questions 
of alert young people tax one’s best abilities and send 
one back to search out the deeper meaning of what he 
thought he understood. 

Open-mindedness.— The adult who is a leader of 
youth will retain something of the freshness of youth. 
It is so easy to settle down and accept the conven- 


The Adult in Youth Leadership 111 

tional ways of life. Youth is always questioiiing, 
seeking to try new experiments. The real leader will 
be willing to make excursions in new fields. He will 
thus keep open-minded. He will discover that there 
is always something to learn. The reexamination of 
accepted doctrines will free his mind from prejudices 
and enable him to see that 

• 

“ New occasions teach new duties; 

Time makes ancient good uncouth; 

They must upward still, and onward, 

Who would keep abreast of Truth.” 

The hope of progress is the young. The wise leader , 
who is not seeking to impart what he knows but to 
be really a leader in the search for truth and duty will 
believe that his disciples will be able to go further 
than he has gone. 

Idealism.— We often smile indulgently at the 
visions and idealism of exuberant youth, saying sen- 
tentiously that they will get over them as we have. 
God forgive us that we have substituted the stupidity 
of age for the idealism of youth. It is better to hope 
and to believe, even a little unwisely, than to be 
cynically expecting nothing, because we have in¬ 
evitably been disappointed. 

Faith belongs to the future. It is the confidence 
that God can do better for us than he has yet been 
able to do because of the hardness of our hearts. 
The faith is in the next generation. Let us bid them 
keep their idealism. Let us give them the benefit of 


114 


A Study of Adult Life 


youth companionship hinder it and in what 
ways promote it? 

REFERENCES FOR READING 

William James, Talks to Teachers on Psy¬ 
chology (Henry Holt and Co.), pp. 3-14. 
Irving King, The High School Age (Bobbs 
Merrill). This book is useful for those de¬ 
siring to study youth life. 

H. W. Gates, Recreation and the Church (Uni- 
, versity of Chicago Press), pp. 22-62. 

Bower, A Survey of Religious Education in the 
Local Church (University of Chicago Press), 

pp. 62 - 80 . 








Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



































































